Design & Development - Necromancy & Nethermancy

[Nemesis Destiny]

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Necromancy & Nethermancy)

Part explanation, part preview. Almost reads like a Rule of Three.

I've been watching this book on the horizon for a while now, in particular, looking forward to the Necromancy school, and specifically how it would deal with all those baddies with Necrotic resist.

Colour me unimpressed, based on this information.

Disrupt Undead is pathetic. It probably also chews up a cantrip slot.

Rotting Doom is also pretty underwhelming.

And the big answer to dealing with necrotic resist? At 10th, they get to ignore it. Great. Pyromancers, whose element is almost as widely resisted, get to ignore it - from level 1.

I was expecting better.

 

[Aegeri]

It's really good, for the first time in a while I've seen crunch from the book that doesn't suck! This is actually pretty good. Even I in my current cynicism am quite happy with some of these powers. The at-will may have an undead specific rider, but the effect is really damn handy in a wide variety of circumstances and so I wouldn't write it off at all. It's also a perfect power for a defiler in a Dark Sun game incidentally. Energy Drain is an interesting power and it's not too complicated - effectively imposing a -1 penalty but without being too annoying to keep track of. It's far from terrible and I like the actual effect it has as well. It's not a bad power at all so I don't understand the "snore" smiley at all. Shouldn't we be happy it's not crap?

Finger of Death is also pretty solid as a fight ender against an elite or similar creature as well, with an impressive bonus damage rider if it gets up there. I actually really like the power and while there are better options, if the book supports necrotic well then I can see it being pretty handy. I don't really think it obsoletes the executioner though, because it can't be done every encounter and has to really pick its moment. It is neat though.

This article made me happy.

Edit: Disrupt undead is terrible, but hopefully they have better options for negating necrotic resistance than a minor action action sink tarpit.

 

[MerricB]

I love Finger of Death. It makes me very happy.

It also makes me scared: my Sunday group is a handful of sessions away from being able to take that power.

I love the tone RJS uses throughout the article; it's informative and not impersonal. Compare with the write up of Athasian familiars, which is very dry and - for me - boring.

Although Disrupt Undead is pretty weak, finding a *good* way around Resist Necrotic would see very difficult (just ignoring it is, to my mind, a poor solution). I'm interested to see the entire class, plus the feats in this book, and see how they all work together. It's a bit difficult to make a final judgement until then!

Cheers!

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

It's really good, for the first time in a while I've seen crunch from the book that doesn't suck! This is actually pretty good. Even I in my current cynicism am quite happy with some of these powers. The at-will may have an undead specific rider, but the effect is really damn handy in a wide variety of circumstances and so I wouldn't write it off at all. It's also a perfect power for a defiler in a Dark Sun game incidentally. Energy Drain is an interesting power and it's not too complicated - effectively imposing a -1 penalty but without being too annoying to keep track of. It's far from terrible and I like the actual effect it has as well. It's not a bad power at all so I don't understand the "snore" smiley at all. Shouldn't we be happy it's not crap?

Finger of Death is also pretty solid as a fight ender against an elite or similar creature as well, with an impressive bonus damage rider if it gets up there. I actually really like the power and while there are better options, if the book supports necrotic well then I can see it being pretty handy. I don't really think it obsoletes the executioner though, because it can't be done every encounter and has to really pick its moment. It is neat though.

This article made me happy.

I actually liked all the Dailies they showed off - cool, old school flavour, neat mechanics. I liked those.

Edit: Disrupt undead is terrible, but hopefully they have better options for negating necrotic resistance than a minor action action sink tarpit.

Disrupt undead is awful. It should at least scale, or, add Int modifier to the amount, or, you know, not suck.

And yeah, they do have another answer, but it doesn't come in until level 10, meanwhile the Pyromancers have been burning things that are made of fire since 1st level.

If they're going to make you wait until 10th to not suck everytime there are undead about, they should at least have made it worthwhile. Ignore necrotic resist, and _______________.

To be fair, maybe they did, I don't know. Maybe there's great feat support. Maybe the other Necro school benefits are great. I'll still buy it, I still want to see it. I'm just probably going to still have to houserule. *sigh*

Oh, and requiring that you have the school benefits in order to cast the shadow servant spell? Not cool. A rider to make it better if you do, I can understand, but to bar others from using it is dumb, like what they did with that Eladrin Knight article. 90% cool, but for a stupid restriction. Which I will houserule (not in the builder, of course, because that's not currently possible.

 

[Aegeri]

I don't really mind the restriction on the pet to those schools to differentiate them. They do need something to feel a bit different from I AM ANOTHER WIZZARD YET AGAIN.

Personally the entire book I feel will live or die on its feats now. If they get good feat support, it will swim and if the feat support sucks - it's going to sink.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Although Disrupt Undead is pretty weak, finding a *good* way around Resist Necrotic would see very difficult (just ignoring it is, to my mind, a poor solution). I'm interested to see the entire class, plus the feats in this book, and see how they all work together. It's a bit difficult to make a final judgement until then!

Cheers!

Here is what I wanted to see;

Necromancy Undone
Master Benefit (Necromancy)

When you hit with a power that deals necrotic damage to a creature that has necrotic resistance, that creature instead gains vulnerable necrotic equal to (Your Int mod, or half level, or something) for that attack.

With some ability to offset Necrotic resist, like the underwhelming Disrupt Undead, at lower level, being a necromancer could be viable.

 

[Neverfate]

I don't play wizards/mages. Likely never will. However, there was an underwhelming "feel" from this. I couldn't quite understand if this was a striker or control build (outside of that one control daily at a tier I've never played in in 2 years, so I couldn't be sure if it's good).

However, it's entirely possibly the left off some of the scaling to powers, or we're not seeing the conjunction with other mage school abilities (set bonuses at whatever levels) so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt. Maybe there's a feat or 2 that lets you pierce more resist too?

 

[interwyrm]

Tiefling wizard wants a fear at-will with forced movement.

 

[Walking Dad]

Here is what I wanted to see;

Necromancy Undone
Master Benefit (Necromancy)

When you hit with a power that deals necrotic damage to a creature that has necrotic resistance, that creature instead gains vulnerable necrotic equal to (Your Int mod, or half level, or something) for that attack.

With some ability to offset Necrotic resist, like the underwhelming Disrupt Undead, at lower level, being a necromancer could be viable.

I really like the article. But you are right, only ignoring necrotic resistance is a weak level 10 effect. Pyromancers get this much earlier.

BTW, can you re-train can-trips? The mage has only a limited number and Disrupt Undead becomes useless at level 10 for a Necromancer.

 

[MerricB]

Just checked in the Character Builder: Mages can retrain cantrips.

Cheers!