Design & Development - Necromancy & Nethermancy

[Plane Sailing]

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.

That is completely in line with the evoker mages from Essentials, and is (for my money) the right way to do it. Don't know where Pyromancer appeared, but ignoring fire resistance from level 1 seems way overpowered and 'silly' to me. It smacks of a 'don't let anything spoil my fun' approach to character design which I don't like.

Cheers

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

That is completely in line with the evoker mages from Essentials, and is (for my money) the right way to do it. Don't know where Pyromancer appeared, but ignoring fire resistance from level 1 seems way overpowered and 'silly' to me. It smacks of a 'don't let anything spoil my fun' approach to character design which I don't like.

Cheers

It came from an issue of Dragon, shortly after HotFL came out. It kind of raised the bar.

I get what you're saying, but the thing with a normal Evoker mage, is that they draw from any and every (if they're smart) energy type. Pyromancers don't, so they had to give them a way to contribute when everything is resisting their attacks.

I imagine that Necromancers will be similarly "hindered" if they follow the flavour and only choose necrotic powers, but likely even more so since just about everything resists necrotic. Undead-themed campaigns are probably more common than fire-themed ones.

I don't know, I haven't seen the whole enchilada, so I could be way offside, but I'm not impressed by the treatment of Necromancy so far.

 

[I'm A Banana]

From my understanding, the necrotic resistance is dealt with in two ways, not just one.

The first is disrupt undead. Which is limited, but not truly horrid. Auto-debuff? It can take up one of my cantrip slots any day (who needs Mage Hand? Really!). Heck, I might even take this if I wans't a necromancer wizard, just so I could still use some necrotic damage powers.

The second is riders on necrotic damage like rotting doom. Which I do quite like. "If you don't take my damage, you WILL have some other problems!" It's not a bad thing.

It's a different solution from the pyromancer's categorical "You do not get resistance." Which is a different solution that affects all the powers a pyromancer uses, regardless of their source material. I quite like that snowball effect, how it opens up more powers and concepts than it otherwise would.

The reason Schwalb gave was: "I wasn’t willing to just jettison necrotic damage. Doing so would violate a lot about what we expect from shadow magic..."

I don't know what he expects from shadow magic, but I'm not sure I agree with that reason. Ignoring resistance is part and parcel of limited-damage-type characters like this. Undead characters should fear necromancers most of all, equal to the radiant-damage-spamming paladins and clerics and avengers and invokers out there.

I think I would've just gone with blanket ignore resist, and then spent less time making sure the hole was covered with powers. Maybe keep of the few neat "if undead..." effects.

Another problem is that the necromancer is still useless against necrotic creatures that don't happen to be undead. There's not that many of them, but "twiddling the thumbs" is a real possibility that would have been avoided with blanket ignore resist.

I like the thoughts behind it, but I will probably bestow upon my table's necromancers automatic necrotic resist ignore, and thus free them up to do other things with their powers than worry about trying to overcome resistances.

 

[Klaus]

From my understanding, the necrotic resistance is dealt with in two ways, not just one.

The first is disrupt undead. Which is limited, but not truly horrid. Auto-debuff? It can take up one of my cantrip slots any day (who needs Mage Hand? Really!). Heck, I might even take this if I wans't a necromancer wizard, just so I could still use some necrotic damage powers.

The second is riders on necrotic damage like rotting doom. Which I do quite like. "If you don't take my damage, you WILL have some other problems!" It's not a bad thing.

It's a different solution from the pyromancer's categorical "You do not get resistance." Which is a different solution that affects all the powers a pyromancer uses, regardless of their source material. I quite like that snowball effect, how it opens up more powers and concepts than it otherwise would.

The reason Schwalb gave was: "I wasn’t willing to just jettison necrotic damage. Doing so would violate a lot about what we expect from shadow magic..."

I don't know what he expects from shadow magic, but I'm not sure I agree with that reason. Ignoring resistance is part and parcel of limited-damage-type characters like this. Undead characters should fear necromancers most of all, equal to the radiant-damage-spamming paladins and clerics and avengers and invokers out there.

I think I would've just gone with blanket ignore resist, and then spent less time making sure the hole was covered with powers. Maybe keep of the few neat "if undead..." effects.

Another problem is that the necromancer is still useless against necrotic creatures that don't happen to be undead. There's not that many of them, but "twiddling the thumbs" is a real possibility that would have been avoided with blanket ignore resist.

I like the thoughts behind it, but I will probably bestow upon my table's necromancers automatic necrotic resist ignore, and thus free them up to do other things with their powers than worry about trying to overcome resistances.

When he says "jettison necrotic", he meant "from the shadow magic powers". Which I agree. So he found two ways of making necromancy powers useful against necrotic-resistant foes: disrupt undead and the "if the target is undead, this other bad thing happens to it" angle.

 

[RangerWickett]

I remember playing Red Hand of Doom, and the party's wizard had been boisterously fireballing everything left and right until finally we confronted the red dragon. Knowing this day was coming, the wizard had bought two scrolls of cone of cold. He failed his caster level check for the first one (nat 1). On the second one, the dragon made its save, and thanks to its ring of cold resistance took 4 damage.

But that was funny. I'm fine with pyromancers sucking against fire resistance. They should, though, be good at controlling fire elementals.

Likewise, necromancers should have a hard time rotting the flesh of, say, an iron golem, but they should be great at messing up undead. I like this.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I guess creatures that resist necrotic and are not undead resist it BECAUSE necromancers should not affect them.

Ever thought about that?

 

[Walking Dad]

I strongly prefer the approach here to the pyromancer, as it doesn't simply eliminate monster damage resistance for the charecter.

Of course, after the thread I started on the pyromancer, I don't expect many to agree.

But necromancers gain the same feature... just much later. Is this better?

And yeah, I like pyromancers.
What is bad about able to do damage with thematic spells?

Is it fun for the group when the controller nearly sucks?
For the controller?
For the DM who laughs at the character and his own wisdom to use fire-resistant monsters?

It makes the fire theme able to compare to a radiant theme.
BTW, Assassins are able to ignore poison resistance and immunity for just 1 feat!

 

[I'm A Banana]

When he says "jettison necrotic", he meant "from the shadow magic powers". Which I agree. So he found two ways of making necromancy powers useful against necrotic-resistant foes: disrupt undead and the "if the target is undead, this other bad thing happens to it" angle.

Ah, okay. In that case, I'd agree with the idea that making necromancers not deal necrotic damage is not what I would expect.

I'm a fan of some of the features of his way to fix the Resistance Problem, it just seems like a lot of scrambling to do something that a blanket ignore resist (or a blanket "if you deal necrotic damage to something with necrotic resistance, X happens") would accomplish quicker, easier, with less word count, less brain space, and more interesting results. Sticking the effects in powers limits their application to those powers and those specific effects.

It's certainly useful for backwards compatibility! A blanket resist would have meant that other wizards or multiclasses selecting necromancer spells would not be able to overcome the resistance; currently, the powers are useful for a wizard looking for ways around the undead problem.

But it's not as useful for future-proofing. If I'm playing a pryomancer, and a new fire spell comes out, I can use it to the greatest extent of my ability. If I'm playing a necromancer, and a new necrotic spell comes out, I can use it, but it won't be as useful as the powers designed for me. Which sort of exacerbates the problem of if you made Necromancers their own class: I also can't choose any properly thematic powers outside of my class (or, in this case, outside of my mage school build).

I think it's a great experiment, and there's interesting ideas here, I just believe I'll like the blanket ignore resist more.

I guess creatures that resist necrotic and are not undead resist it BECAUSE necromancers should not affect them.

Ever thought about that?

Sure, maybe. But twiddling your thumbs is boring. If I made a creature with resist weapons (so that weapon damage is resisted) and threw it against the party on a regular basis, fighters, rogues, rangers, warlords, and others who use a lot of [W]-type powers would have reason to be annoyed. Similarly, a necromancer who faces a lot of necro resist (non undead) creatures would have reason to be annoyed.

If the goal is to let everyone participate in the indiscriminate slaughter of The Bad Guys, "not affecting them" does not meet that goal.

It's entirely possible that this should not be the goal of combat, but I think that's a tangential discussion.

 

[Aegeri]

Yeah I have to completely agree with Kamikaze. I would have had them just blanket ignore resistance - especially because I feel resistance is a mechanic that is being toned down in 4E if anything else - because they need to in the end be effective. The pyromancer is great because of this and IMO, not only should the necromancer/nethermancer have class features to help - but there should be feats ANYONE can take to improve/negate necrotic resistance.

Otherwise we might as well just put the Blackguard in the corner out of the way while there are any undead around.

 

[twilsemail]

but ignoring fire resistance from level 1 seems way overpowered and 'silly' to me. It smacks of a 'don't let anything spoil my fun' approach to character design which I don't like.

The Fighter ignores "weapon resist" from level 1. Why not let a pyromancer ignore "fire resist" or a necromancer ignore "necrotic resist."

When you're dealing with a wizard that tosses around a number of damage types, resists having an impact makes sense. When you're dealing with a monster that resists that one type of damage you do? You're likely a bit hosed.

That said, I'd much rather see something along the lines of an upgrading feature:
Level 1: you hit a creature with Necrotic Resistance with a necromancy power- That creature is slowed.
Level 11: That creature is dazed
Level 21: That creature is dominated.

Make all of them UENT and you're golden. That smacks a bit more of control to me. Then again, it seems like that might be the route they're going. Less damage and more control is good in my book.