Mmmm...Libris Mortis.

[Nightchilde-2]

I picked this up today. Unfortunately, between Fable and Mortal Kombat Deception, I haven't been able to devote enough time to read much, but I did do a look through.

Pretty nice. The "necrotic" family of spells is just nasty (and I mean that in the "ooh..icky" way). Lots of new undead, variants for existing undead.

True Necromancer is not a core class, however, it is a 14 (or was it 13?) level PrC.

Very very cool book so far. Still not as cool as Draconomicon, but then, what is?

 

[Nightfall]

Details! I must have ORCUS details!!!

*pratices his summoning Demon Princes...*

 

[jester47]

ORCUS! ORCUS! ORCUS!

Hrmm... nothin'

Always seems to work for Hastur...

A.

 

[Gothmog]

Agreed, I have been impressed with Libris Mortis, despite the silly name. Lots of good fluff about undead, the condition of undeath, and their mental outlook, as well as how to run undead focused campaigns. The spells look really nasty, and the PrCs, while not something I usually care much about, seem like interesting concepts. There are also racial advancements ala Savage Species for several types of undead, and thoughts for using undead as PCs. There are also some cool ideas for undead craving life force, and what happens to their psychological state when they are starved of it.

There is a section about deities of the undead in the book, and Orcus gets a one page writeup Nightfall, but I haven't seen much about Orcus in this book yet. There is an interesting section on equipment and items geared towards undead, but by far the biggest part of the book is for new undead beasties. Most of the new undead types seem pretty cool, and I could definitely see myself using in a darker sort of campaign (which is what I love to run). The last part of the book presents half a dozen adventure locations with undead, the sort you can drop into an exisiting campaign (such as the House on the Hill, the Mortuary, and the Ghoul Colony). Very cool stuff. For me, this book is MUCH more useful than the Draconomicon since I tend to use undead about 100 times more often than dragons. This book, Frostburn and MM III have really impressed me- WotC might be back on the path to some really good supplements again.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I love what I've read of the book so far (and there's definitely an undead high-level true necromancer in my players' future ).

But my favorite part of the book is the little sidebar in the introduction, where WotC gives a (very friendly and good-humored) "Get over it" to all the people complaining about the Latin.

 

[Samurai]

This book is great... an Undead version of the Draconomicon. Same format and style (physiology, psychology, analysis of abilities, new creatures, sample specific creature write-ups, lairs, etc). I wonder what will be next in this series?

Orcus gets just 1 page (no picture of him, just his wand), but he is described as a "Death God", with quick details on his temples, domains, rites, quests, etc. There are several other death gods similarly detailed, including Nerull the Reaper and Doresain, King of the Ghouls.

The True Necromancer seems a bit too powerful IMHO. They are similar to a Mystic Theurge, gaining effective caster levels in both Arcane and Divine spellcasting at the same time, except for a few levels where it's just 1 or the other. In addition, they get fairly powerful class abilities at every level. The entry requirements are not really any harder than Mystic Theurge, and True Necromancer goes for 14 levels instead of 10. This means that you can go all the way to 20th level with it after entering the PrC at level 7. Because of the few skipped double spellcasting advances, you'll be effectively a 15th lvl arcane/15th lvl divine caster at 20th level, the same as a Mystic Theurge, but you'll rebuke Undead as a 17th lvl cleric, have a bunch of class abilities (such as Create Undead (a 6th lvl spell) 2/day, Create Greater Undead (8th lvl spell) 2/day, Horrid Wilting (an 8th lvl spell) 1/day, Energy Drain (a 9th lvl spell) 1/day, Wail of the Banshee (a 9th lvl spell) 1/day, and Necromantic Prowess which increases your effective caster level by +4 for all Necromantic spells and abilities, including all of the free abilities listed above! This is just too much, IMHO, and probably makes this the single most powerful PrC I've yet seen. If you restrict it to NPCs, that's fine, but I think it's too much for a PC...

 

[Olive]

For me, this book is MUCH more useful than the Draconomicon since I tend to use undead about 100 times more often than dragons.

This is very true... slightly strange then that it's not the same size as the dragon book?

But my favorite part of the book is the little sidebar in the introduction, where WotC gives a (very friendly and good-humored) "Get over it" to all the people complaining about the Latin.

Thank ghod.

Anyway, it was almost worth the cash for the Draconomicon purely for the random treasure tables at the ack of the book, which I use almost evey game.

Anything like that in this book?

 

[Zamora]

Anyway, it was almost worth the cash for the Draconomicon purely for the random treasure tables at the ack of the book, which I use almost evey game.

Me too! I've used these loads. Haven't used the rest of the book much -- a couple of sample dragons was about it.

Cheers


Richard

 

[Mouseferatu]

The True Necromancer seems a bit too powerful IMHO.

I don't think so, really, for the same reasons the Mystic Theurge isn't really as unbalanced as it looks. You're trading power for variety. Sure, you can cast a lot more spells, from two different lists, but your spells will be weaker than other casters of equal level, and you'll never have the high-level ones. Any round you're healing, you're not throwing a fireball. Any round you're casting shield on yourself, you're not casting bless on the party.

It sounds, on paper, that having the spellcasting abilities of wiz15/clr15 makes you far more potent than a wiz20 or clr20. In practice, it just doesn't work that way.

 

[Queen Petite]

Details! I must have ORCUS details!!!

Thats easily the lamest name I've ever heard for a diety.

What's so special about that fellow?