How much back story for a low-level PC?

[Raven Crowking]

Actually, yes there was a swath of bodies in her wake - she was threatening a very powerful nation with her hordes of undead and magical abilities.

And, she had been an adventurer with the PC's father, but stopped to give birth to the two daughters.

So long as there is reasonable foreshadowing, I have no problem with this conceptually. It is certainly "on the table".

However, "She had a name, and was related to a PC" does not qualify as reasonable foreshadowing, IMHO.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Actually that sounds more like a house rule. Which is fine, just please don't state it as if it's actually in the rules as written or rules as intended. No edition of D&D I've played (AD&D 2-2.5, D&D 3.0-3.5) has ever separated specialist wizards along NPC/PC lines.

Neonchameleon might be thinking of the 2e Complete Book of Necromancers, which was a DM suppliment rather than a player one? Still, there was nothing in that book that prevented PC necromancers from existing, and PC necromancers were a default under the core rules.


RC

 

[Neonchameleon]

So, the players are near the PCs' home town, find out the mom died, then leave and move on. The adventure then continues on the next continent.

The players are then zapped back in time due to the lich's magical artifact - where they encounter the lich, who has been waiting for them for over 100 years, building her power while she terrorized the planet.

And once again we're back into eyeroll territory. This is very clearly not the DM taking the mother, it's the GM taking the plot the GM wants to run, and choosing one backstory NPC to put onto the bed of Procrustes to fit in the plot.

That's a pretty big always to throw out there. Untrue. Many games allow players freedom of choice, even down dark paths. And some even view necromancy as a neutral tool used by both good and evil. Your declaration is quite ridiculous.

Actually that sounds more like a house rule. Which is fine, just please don't state it as if it's actually in the rules as written or rules as intended. No edition of D&D I've played (AD&D 2-2.5, D&D 3.0-3.5) has ever separated specialist wizards along NPC/PC lines.

Not so. There are some pretty tight caps on what a PC can control under the rules. A company is fine (4*hd from Animate IIRC, plus commanding some bigger stuff for a limited time with Command (Create doesn't count - it creates the monsters uncommanded)) - but when you get to a horde of undead then you're using NPC-only rules (unless I've missed a grimoire). You're hard pushed to wipe out an NPC only hamlet with that. For even a small town, forget it (unless you are magically strong enough to do it yourself.

You can have a PC with a handful of skeleton servants, sure. But not a BBEG necromancer under PC rules.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

In a similar discussion elsewhere, another poster succinctly summarized my approach to backstories:

Then I think we're just talking past each other, because what you quoted is alot closer to what I've been trying to talk about all along. If so, it seems we mostly agree.

Not so. There are some pretty tight caps on what a PC can control under the rules. A company is fine (4*hd from Animate IIRC, plus commanding some bigger stuff for a limited time with Command (Create doesn't count - it creates the monsters uncommanded)) - but when you get to a horde of undead then you're using NPC-only rules (unless I've missed a grimoire). You're hard pushed to wipe out an NPC only hamlet with that. For even a small town, forget it (unless you are magically strong enough to do it yourself.

You can have a PC with a handful of skeleton servants, sure. But not a BBEG necromancer under PC rules.

Setting a horde of uncontrolled undead upon a town is just as effective as a controlled group of undead. I don't recall any rules allowing NPCs to control more undead than a PC. Or was this just adventure design handwaving that you are thinking of?

 

[Neonchameleon]

Then I think we're just talking past each other, because what you quoted is alot closer to what I've been trying to talk about all along. If so, it seems we mostly agree.



Setting a horde of uncontrolled undead upon a town is just as effective as a controlled group of undead. I don't recall any rules allowing NPCs to control more undead than a PC. Or was this just adventure design handwaving that you are thinking of?

Once you get the undead to the town while uncontrolled... Or do you mean she effectively sets up a bomb by going digging in the graveyard one night, and then running after raising a horde of uncontrolled undead? It's adventure handwaving of a sort the PCs can't possibly come close to doing - meaning that despite the forms she really isn't playing under PC rules.

 

[Zhaleskra]

Neonchameleon might be thinking of the 2e Complete Book of Necromancers, which was a DM suppliment rather than a player one? Still, there was nothing in that book that prevented PC necromancers from existing, and PC necromancers were a default under the core rules.

If he was using CBoN, he seems to have missed the bit on "white, gray, and black" necromancy.

Not so. There are some pretty tight caps on what a PC can control under the rules. A company is fine (4*hd from Animate IIRC, plus commanding some bigger stuff for a limited time with Command (Create doesn't count - it creates the monsters uncommanded)) - but when you get to a horde of undead then you're using NPC-only rules (unless I've missed a grimoire). You're hard pushed to wipe out an NPC only hamlet with that. For even a small town, forget it (unless you are magically strong enough to do it yourself.

You can have a PC with a handful of skeleton servants, sure. But not a BBEG necromancer under PC rules.

This still doesn't address your assertion that "necromancers are always NPCs." I also don't follow the "Animate Dead is always Evil"* road either. Disrespectful to the dead, perhaps, but as Raven Croking hints: it's not that you animated them, it's what you do with them afterward.

Oh, I see what you did there. Yeah, I don't buy the villans are always evil trope either.

*Some of the changes to the rules between AD&D2 and D&D3 made certain ideas I found interesting illegal by the rules, e.g., Raaigs - Dark Sun Positive Energy Undead Tomb Guards. Yet there are still good undead in 3.x despite the "Negative Energy is Always Evil" trope.

Speaking of Athas, there is a spell, I think in Dragon Kings, specifically for animating an entire battlefield of undead.

 

[Raven Crowking]

In the case where a magic item/artifact is involved, it is quite possible for a PC to control an undead horde.

We simply lack the information needed to know whether the lichmom has an "NPC Special" ability, or conforms to the rules used by PCs.


RC

 

[Neonchameleon]

Name three artifacts in the base rules that come close to that level of power? The Deck of Many Things, arguably. But Apparatus of Qualish? Staff of the Magi? Hammer of the Dwarven Lords? Even the Hand and Eye of Vecna? Artifacts are cool, but not that good. And would the PCs ever be allowed to wield the artifact (hint: items that turn you evil and into NPCs don't count as wieldable).

The question is where the NPC Special is on the character sheet. Whether it's listed under character abilities or equipment (artifact).

 

[coyote6]

General of undeath, from Magic of Faerun or Spell Compendium (the SC version is so wimpy it's cheesy; the MoF version is fairly badass).

Of course, what the ability of a hypothetical character to control mass amounts of undead, and whether it's a PC or NPC ability, has to do with the thread topic is something of a mystery. Oh, wait, arguing to argue. My bad.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Name three artifacts in the base rules that come close to that level of power? The Deck of Many Things, arguably. But Apparatus of Qualish? Staff of the Magi? Hammer of the Dwarven Lords? Even the Hand and Eye of Vecna? Artifacts are cool, but not that good. And would the PCs ever be allowed to wield the artifact (hint: items that turn you evil and into NPCs don't count as wieldable).

The question is where the NPC Special is on the character sheet. Whether it's listed under character abilities or equipment (artifact).

Ring of Three Wishes is a pretty obvious one. Bag of Bones is another, which is specifically intended to allow an army of skeletons to be fielded.

In any event, why "name three"? So long as there is one way for a PC to do what an NPC is able to do, the point is (potentially) invalidated. I suspect that, in this case, Hobo would not have determined how an army of undead was obtained (from his answers upthread, where having a name and being mentioned in a PC's backstory seems sufficient for lichdom), but that does not mean, as a general rule, that fielding an army of undead is not PC-doable. It clearly is.


RC