Design & Development - Necromancy & Nethermancy

[Aegeri]

Yes they can, AIP (dagger) and grab a Flaming Dagger. Done.

Or a cold weapon.

This is also how most martial classes can get access to wintertouched/lasting frost cheese as well. Just take a suitable weapon. Bearing in mind, you can always just turn off the cold damage as well and go back to normal damage any time you want.

 

[interwyrm]

Yes they can, AIP (dagger) and grab a Flaming Dagger. Done.

Flaming quarterstaff. No need for AIP.

 

[TerraDave]

In general, coming up with alternate ways of harming something that can resist your main attack(s) is part of the fun of the game. Has been for many years. We had some in the last session! Involving fire! It was fun!

A by the PHB fire focused wizard (I have had two now in my game) has a number of ways to deal with an opponent that resist fire. So does a fire oriented evoker from essentials.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Once again:

I think, post PHB3 design allows designers to be creative. A blank necrotic resist is just bland. Face it.

Here is always an uproar, when something in design only hints at reduce DPR. Side effects and synergies are always considered secondary. Flavour is considered tertiary. And thinking outside the box comes even after that.

What many of you seem to like are cookie cutter knives. Benefits without a drawback. IF you specialze only on fire spells, you should have some drawbacks.
You already have a big advantage: you can take all those feats that improve your speciality. So in a perfect world, advantages and disadvantages have to balance out.

A pyromancer with surging flames even does more damage to fire creatures than to creatures without fire resistance. This is fun for a single class. But if it is the design principle for every class, that would be very unfun and we would fall back to the too simplified and "boring" structure we already had.

The evoker is a good example and a better predecessor for the necro than the pyromancer:
You have to use your different elements wisely, maybe depending on secondary effects, until you reach level 10 and suddenly can overcome resistance. Something that you earned. Having this ability at level 1 would make the evoker very boring:
Chose spells for highest damage and go. *yawn*

 

[Aegeri]

Once again:

I think, post PHB3 design allows designers to be creative. A blank necrotic resist is just bland. Face it.

Necrotic resistance is a bland and boring mechanic to begin with. The post-MM3 design is to limit resistance/immunity - instead creatures can interact with damage types in far more interesting ways than reducing damage. A volcanic dragon poisons the party every time it is hit with a fire keyword power. A blizzard dragon slides you. Some aberrant creatures recharge massive extra damage psychic keyword related powers.

This is flavorful. This is interesting. It doesn't make the character with the damage type ineffective - it merely informs and adds to the games tactical situation.

"Oh, I've been rendered useless this encounter" is boring.

It is not flavorful.

It is not interesting.

I would take more volcanic dragon mechanics and death to resistance granted class features every day now. One adds to combat and the other doesn't penalize PCs unfairly. I mean we let cold, radiant, fire, lightning and thunder ignore resistance: Why on earth is necrotic so special it doesn't deserve the same effective options everyone else gets?

 

[Plane Sailing]

In general, coming up with alternate ways of harming something that can resist your main attack(s) is part of the fun of the game. Has been for many years. We had some in the last session! Involving fire! It was fun!

A by the PHB fire focused wizard (I have had two now in my game) has a number of ways to deal with an opponent that resist fire. So does a fire oriented evoker from essentials.

Exactly.

It is like the complaint that it isn't fair that a fighter focussed on brawling isn't any good against flying opponents. Tough. If you want to focus a character so much on one theme that you can't deal with the few foes which are not playing in your space, then you have to accept that you either need friends who can cover your back or you need to find coping mechanisms for those circumstances.

For my money, one of the huge strengths of the Mage class is that you get to have a major specialisation in one field and a minor one in another. The Necromancer isn't a brand new class, it is a specialisation, and so should be treated like the other specialisations. It means someone that those paragons of necromancy who have mastered the school can ignore necrotic resistance and rot the flesh of wraiths, and good for them; but those who have specialised in illusion or enchantment or evocation and only taken a side order of necromancy haven't the dedication to do that - but they have other strings to their bow too (as, in fact, does the full on necromancer - he'll have his minor specialisation in evocation or enchantment or illusion or nethermancy, won't he!)

Cheers

 

[I'm A Banana]

It is like the complaint that it isn't fair that a fighter focussed on brawling isn't any good against flying opponents. Tough. If you want to focus a character so much on one theme that you can't deal with the few foes which are not playing in your space, then you have to accept that you either need friends who can cover your back or you need to find coping mechanisms for those circumstances.

This sets off my "Different Playstyles!" alarms.

Some games -- especially on the more sim/sandboxy end of the spectrum -- hold that this sort of blatant categorical ineffectiveness is part of how you choose different missions, or make different parties, or use different tools. Part of the play experience is using the world to your greatest advantage. There's no problem not being able to take out flying enemies, because you're never without the option to not engage those enemies.

Other games -- more on the story/narrative end of the spectrum -- hold that this is a problem, because the play experience is more about your heroes and the big villain and how they fight and who they are. There's a HUGE problem if you can't take out a category of enemy, because you're expected to be the hero, and if you're not, it's not fun for you.

4e is much more heavily weighted to the story/narrative side of things in this situation. I can't say I blame them. If they expect you to stay with one character for two and a half years, over 300 encounters, they're going to want to make that character an effective contributor in nearly all of them. Sure, certain encounters will skew certain ways -- defenders and strikers shine during solo battles, controllers are less useful without minions, leaders suffer from long encounters with high-damage enemies -- but for 295 of them, you should be doing something to contribute to success.

If those 300 encounters were composed largely of undead and shadow enemies, or demons and devils and fire elementals, or rocs and pegasi and flying wizards, you'd have a harder time feeling like you are the hero, and, unless the game was deliberately sandboxy and you could choose to go elsewhere (e.g.: the DM has planned that the big threats in the campaign are flying undead fire elementals!), it's going to suck.

As WotC, I would be interested more in the latter half, since there is more at stake there -- a bigger penalty for failure. The worst that could happen is that some sensitive DMs are upset when their waves of fire elementals fail to make the player of the fire mage cry in futility. Which sounds just fine to me.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Necrotic resistance is a bland and boring mechanic to begin with. The post-MM3 design is to limit resistance/immunity - instead creatures can interact with damage types in far more interesting ways than reducing damage. A volcanic dragon poisons the party every time it is hit with a fire keyword power. A blizzard dragon slides you. Some aberrant creatures recharge massive extra damage psychic keyword related powers.

This is flavorful. This is interesting. It doesn't make the character with the damage type ineffective - it merely informs and adds to the games tactical situation.

"Oh, I've been rendered useless this encounter" is boring.

It is not flavorful.

It is not interesting.

I would take more volcanic dragon mechanics and death to resistance granted class features every day now. One adds to combat and the other doesn't penalize PCs unfairly. I mean we let cold, radiant, fire, lightning and thunder ignore resistance: Why on earth is necrotic so special it doesn't deserve the same effective options everyone else gets?

As I read it, necrotic resistance piercing happens at the same level as general resistance piercing. And before that, you have your mechanic to deal with it. Mechanics i like more than boring resistance piercing.

And ignoring resist 5 should be enough until end of heroic. I really don´t understand that rage once again. Preventing regeneration without having radiant damage is also a great deal. it can mean 10 more effective damage, even at heroic...

I am really sorry, but i don´t know why there is always such a negative response...

 

[Aegeri]

As I read it, necrotic resistance piercing happens at the same level as general resistance piercing.

General resistance piercing is arguably worth 9 levels more of putting up without it than a specialist. A specialist needs the feature earlier because they don't have options really - that's the point of being a specialist. While the general guy can switch energy types as much as he feels like because he's not committed to anything specifically.

This is why the pyromancer ignores fire resist right off the bat. The argument about necrotic resistance being "important" is just a wash to me as well. It's like we have two groups of designers and neither of them are communicating. MM3 and beyond have specifically reduced resistances for the precise reason they are a boring uninteresting mechanic. Hence my examples from earlier.

And before that, you have your mechanic to deal with it.

Action sink powers to accomplish what should be done with class features or a simple feat - that's all I'm asking for actually is just a simple FEAT here - is not a good solution. You can retrain cantrips out though, so once it becomes useless you can get rid of it.

Mechanics i like more than boring resistance piercing.

I think both mechanics are boring and anything that cancels them out so you don't care doesn't bother me! I mean again: Why is Necrotic such a special snowflake that we need to make people jump through hoops to make an effective character? They aren't GAINING anything for this. Necrotic is arguably one of the worst damage types in 4E. Why punish what is already bad?

I just don't get this kind of design whatsoever, it's just silly.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

1) you don´t have the full picture
2) a normal wizard can use those powers too
3) who hoo action sink... as if a wizard does a lot with its move actions... he can sit around at range
4) we don´t know about feat support yet
5) you dont know what the first level feature is
6) some people would complain that if necrotic resist solutuion is tied to the mage, there would be an equal amount of complains
7) just ignore necrotic resist... easiest thing... no feature needed in cb at all
8) just make up a feat... shoul work, as it does not mess up with th pcs stats or powers
9) i guess wizards should just stop communication... seems like wasted resources.... there is no one who thanks them for it
10) thank you people at wizards. great design.