D&D 5E (2024) The Undead Army Necromancer is not Designable

[tombowings]

It's less "do one thing with a clear intended purpose and nothing more"
More "separate the combat spells from the exploration spells and social spells."

If you want a spell that summons 10 zombies at level 3, sure. But they can't be combat zombies. If you want to push a boulder out the way, you have 10 guys to do it.

If you want a dozen bony warriors, sure. But they can't push the rock, search an area, and can't make grapples. It's Bone Sword and Bone Bow only. And they can't split up. You can make them guard a door but all of them must do it.

Doesn't that feel artificial? I'm not sure what element of the game world are you trying to bring to the forefront?

 

[Minigiant]

Doesn't that feel artificial? I'm not sure what element of the game world you're trying to simulate.

How so? That's how I naturally see it.

For example, in Warhammer Fantasy, most undead are not intelligent.

For Vampire Counts/Coast, only vampires have real minds. Vampires have to employ lower ranking vampires and human necromancers to

1) create more undead
2) corral undead into going somewhere
3) press undead into doing something complex

But the Tomb Kings, they are intelligent nobility and near mindless commoners. The common Nekraharan is mostly brain wiped. A skeleton only knows how to do what it did in life. You ask a farmer to shoot a bow and if they weren't an militia or military archer in life, you are getting nothing. And even if they are, their skill is atrophied.

And that's how many media do it.

The Warcraft Scourge? Most of the undead were mindless idiots who needed necromancers to manage them. Diablo's different undead come from different spells and the more intelligent and stronger ones created fewer undead.

Dresden Necromancers used apprentices to manage their lesser undead so the head necromancer could do other things. And who knows the trouble in controlling a Red or Black court. And White Court are essentially not really undead.

Common undead are morons.
Uncommon intelligent undead require constant maintenance
Rare powerful undead are unusual autonomous, barely commanded, and expensive to control.

Want a lot of zombies? You create a bunch of mindless idiots.
Want warrior zombies? You need a special spell to give them the ability to use weapons?
Want advisor zombies? You need a special spell to return a zombies memory and let it speak.
Want worker zombie? You need a spell to give the zombies tool use.
Want intelligent zombies? Well first you need a spell to animate the zombie with intelligence. Then you need a spell to gain control of it. Then you gotta do it again tomorrow and every day after.
Want a vampire instead of a zombie? Well well well. First you gotta be strong enough to animate a vampire with just spells. Then you need to dominate it. Then you need to perform a ritual to control it long term. And you might need a spell to restrain it in case it makes the save.

 

[tombowings]

How so? That's how I naturally see it.

For example, in Warhammer Fantasy, most undead are not intelligent.

For Vampire Counts/Coast, only vampires have real minds. Vampires have to employ lower ranking vampires and human necromancers to

1) create more undead
2) corral undead into going somewhere
3) press undead into doing something complex

But the Tomb Kings, they are intelligent nobility and near mindless commoners. The common Nekraharan is mostly brain wiped. A skeleton only knows how to do what it did in life. You ask a farmer to shoot a bow and if they weren't an militia or military archer in life, you are getting nothing. And even if they are, their skill is atrophied.

And that's how many media do it.

The Warcraft Scourge? Most of the undead were mindless idiots who needed necromancers to manage them. Diablo's different undead come from different spells and the more intelligent and stronger ones created fewer undead.

Dresden Necromancers used apprentices to manage their lesser undead so the head necromancer could do other things. And who knows the trouble in controlling a Red or Black court. And White Court are essentially not really undead.

Common undead are morons.
Uncommon intelligent undead require constant maintenance
Rare powerful undead are unusual autonomous, barely commanded, and expensive to control.

Want a lot of zombies? You create a bunch of mindless idiots.
Want warrior zombies? You need a special spell to give them the ability to use weapons?
Want advisor zombies? You need a special spell to return a zombies memory and let it speak.
Want worker zombie? You need a spell to give the zombies tool use.
Want intelligent zombies? Well first you need a spell to animate the zombie with intelligence. Then you need a spell to gain control of it. Then you gotta do it again tomorrow and every day after.
Want a vampire instead of a zombie? Well well well. First you gotta be strong enough to animate a vampire with just spells. Then you need to dominate it. Then you need to perform a ritual to control it long term. And you might need a spell to restrain it in case it makes the save.

Great! I can totally see this working for worlds where those assumptions hold true.

 

[Muh]

Doesn't that feel artificial? I'm not sure what element of the game world are you trying to bring to the forefront?

Doesn't matter if it's artificial if it's well designed.

There's always a balance between doing things that "make sense" and doing things that support good gameplay.

 

[Minigiant]

Great! I can totally see this working for worlds where those assumptions hold true.

Those assumptions also happen to be common in most popular books, movies, games, and shows.

The exceptions tend to only be single player Diablo, Warcraft, and FFT clone video games.

 

[tombowings]

Doesn't matter if it's artificial if it's well designed.

There's always a balance between doing things that "make sense" and doing things that support good gameplay.

And based on where we fall on that preference scale, we should avoid playing at the same table.

 

[mellored]

It's less "do one thing with a clear intended purpose and nothing more"
More "separate the combat spells from the exploration spells and social spells."

If you want a spell that summons 10 zombies at level 3, sure. But they can't be combat zombies. If you want to push a boulder out the way, you have 10 guys to do it.

If you want a dozen bony warriors, sure. But they can't push the rock, search an area, and can't make grapples. It's Bone Sword and Bone Bow only. And they can't split up. You can make them guard a door but all of them must do it.

Seems perfectly reasonable for a DM to allow Summon Undead Horde to push a rock. Same as any other summon.

Which is probably a good reason to use a stat block instead of a zone that I initially suggested.

 

[mellored]

Just to bullet point things I would want in an undead swarm

• Grapple
• Difficult terrain
• Moves slowly, not slowed by Grapple
• Low but unavoidable damage
• Size is based on HP/damage/spell slot
• Grows/heals over time, possibly as an action.
• Bonus HP/size if you include a corpse

Experimental thinking about

• Ally friendly while concentrating,
• Losing concentration means the swarm just stands there being difficult terrain, slowly disappearing in sunlight.
• Necromancer can use an action and any spell slot to gain control of an uncontrolled swarm, concentrating on it. So losing concentration only cost an action to recover, steal other Necromances army, or just leave them behind for a bit while concentrating on another spell.

 

[Eric V]

I feel like the vibe of this thread is a lot of clever people who clearly hate necromancers coming up with high concept ways to disappoint would-be necromancers. You all should just ban them and the necromancy spells from your table if they're actually causing you so much trouble. Better than crafting some watered down "necromancer by and for people who don't actually want necromancers" option.

#psionics #warlord

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Where do zombies get summoned from? Like, random graveyards? The shadowfell?

I feel like, if you go the summoning undead route, you might as well let a life cleric summon a live person.

The whole necromancer trope is they hang out in graveyards and steal bodies. Why would they do that if they can just summon animated bodies?