Players really want the Necromancer? (Forked: Non-published concepts you want)

[Rechan]

Something like that, yeah. I think you're just looking for reasons to get crabby at this point, though

My only concern is that, turning "Make Army of Undead Ritual" means that Pcs can use it too.

Then you have problems.

 

[Rechan]

This has to be the funniest bizarre fixation on the messageboards at the moment. It's very Edena of Neith. Like, omg, adventurers upset a guy! That never happens and it's clearly evil if it does!

The Gary Gygax did not make the game to upset guys. That is not how the Gary Gygax played his games.

 

[theNater]

Well, specifically, I'd like some rules for raising armies of the dead. No edition of D&D thus far has had workable rules for that (you'd die from old age before raising several thousand troops with the Animate Dead spell).

So...you want formal rules on how many undead a necromancer can raise in a given time? That strikes me as living in the realm of plot.

If the necromancer is going to roll his undead armies across the land when he has 1000 more corpses in his army, and the DM wants the heroes to have a month to stop him, he can raise 250 undead a week. If the heroes have to fight more of his undead bodyguards in the final confrontation because they weren't prompt in chasing him down, he can raise one undead a day.

Having official rules for this would actually be less helpful to DMs, because they would be forced to adjust the story to fit with the rules.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The Gary Gygax did not make the game to upset guys. That is not how the Gary Gygax played his games.

Exactly, adventurers never upset ANYONE man, that's the whole point. Adventurers go to sensitivity training regularly and ensure that anyone who undergoes any kind of trauma, or feels that they might have, is offered appropriate councilling (paid for out of the spoils of the adventure). Emotional trauma is something for adventurers to be seriously concerned about. It's why adventurers NEVER go into tombs of people's ancestors, never loot bodies in front of peasants, always ensure all those horribly killed orcs are carefully moved away from town and quietly buried, and don't spend all night in tavern drinking their gold away, screaming for more ale and telling hair-raising stories of the people they've killed and things they've stolen.

It's all in 1st Edition, guys, I'm not sure why you're not seeing it!

 

[jdrakeh]

Having official rules for this would actually be less helpful to DMs. . .

For you, maybe. For DMs as a whole, no. How do I know? Because I'm typicaly a DM and such rules would be incredibly helpful for me. The fact that raising a whole army of undead has been impossible in past editions of the D&D RAW was incredibly annoying for me. But by all means, please feel free to continue telling me that my personal experience is irrelevant to what I'd personally like to see in a rule set and that how I run my games is wrong. I love that.

 

[Scribble]

Sometimes adventurers upset people.

But then they kill those people and take their stuff.




How many XP do we get for the bartender?

 

[theNater]

The fact that raising a whole army of undead has been impossible in past editions of the D&D RAW was incredibly annoying for me.

I think I may have been misunderstood. What I was trying to say is that, for 3rd edition at least, it was impossible to raise a whole army of undead because there were formal rules for raising undead. Absent official rules, a necromancer can raise and control however many undead the DM wishes.

That was the point I was trying to make, and if it offends you, I apologize.

 

[roguerouge]

This has to be the funniest bizarre fixation on the messageboards at the moment. It's very Edena of Neith. Like, omg, adventurers upset a guy! That never happens and it's clearly evil if it does!

Look, I'm sorry if I upset you by demonstrating some intellectual curiousity about this issue, which never comes up at my gaming table. I'll try to remain incurious in the future and avoid the free exchange of ideas since that evidently wastes valuable bandwidth for you.

Defensive, much?

What's most annoying about your response is that I was simply exploring the argument that you made: that animating bodies without harming the soul was a harmless act. The one possible harm I could think of was included in the QUESTION that I asked. You can tell it's a question because I got several polite replies, rather than being berated and belittled by your three responses.

Fortunately, your post reveals a second possible reason for why fantasy societies might have taboos against animating corpses: People who animate corpses and avocate for the practice tend to lose the social niceties necessary for social inclusion. Thus, they become much more likely to act out when they interact with creatures that don't follow their every command, making them more likely to slide towards more anti-social behavior...

 

[Particle_Man]

I always kinda wanted to play a paladin of Wee Jas and get the DM to okay having command instead of turn.

If you go the Book of 9 Swords route and go LN Cleric/Crusader/Ruby Knight Vindicator, you can get an almost-paladin and get the command undead ability. I know it is not quite what you said (that would be an LG paladin with command undead) but it is pretty close.

 

[Set]

One issue I can see coming up here is that even if WotC does create a PC-able Necromancer, they are pretty tightly building the classes these days, and, like pretty much any spellcaster, the Necromancer is all over the freaking place with it's signature abilities.

It's got enchantment-like effects (fear), transmutation-like effects (animation), conjuration-like effects (summon undead), evocation-like effects (negative energy damage spells), divination-like effects (speak with dead), etc. As 'schools of magic' go, it's not really a school of effect, so much as a 'theme school' cobbled together from 'creepy' spells from other schools.

I guess it could be some sort of Controller, with undead minion(s) blocking people while the Necromancer throws some sort of negative energy debuffs that drain combat ability or ghostly hands that hinder movement.


The side argument about whether or not Necromancers / corpse animation would distress the peasantfolk would probably be more relevant in a non-4E game where the signature adventurer on the PHB cover isn't visibly and unapologetically descended from fiends from hell.