Grey_Wolf_c
2012-04-22, 09:33 AM
Executive Summary (aka tl;dr):
I need help building a necromancer+undead minions party in 4e. Suggestions welcomed.
We all know that the 4e necromancer is not particularly good. I suspect that the main reason for this is that any undead raised are by necessity dailies, and thus there cannot be permanent raising of undead minions without breaking the design choices of 4e - and a necromancer without a few skeletons following him around is just not what it should be.
On the other hand, for some time I have been mulling a form of 4e single-person play that could work in PbP: one person controlling a whole team. Now, usually, that is not a good idea since ideally an adventuring group is made up of independent individuals. However, this idea clicked with the concept of a true necromancer. In PbP, a player could play a necromancer and his undead minions, all of whom are fully realised characters but that, from the PoV of role play, are mindless minions controlled by the only actual character, the necromancer.
And this is where I hit the snag: while the high level vision works, the details are beyond my ability. So I am finally taking the plunge and bringing it to the overmind of the OotS forums. Please, guys, let me hear what you would do. I'll start with what I have figured out myself, to get us started.
Ground rule: I am no friend of house rules. I am perfectly happy with refluffing till the cows come home, but I'd rather play the rules of the game as straight as possible. That said, mild house rules are acceptable if they make the concept work much better with just a minor change.
The Necromancer
Ideally, this should be a leader class. His job is to strengthen and maintain his undead minions, who fight for him. If he were the type to blast his enemies with fireblasts, he wouldn't be a necromancer. To my limited knowledge of class variants, this rules out the wizard, so I looked through the priest (usually the second choice for necromancer), but found him to not mesh with what I was looking for (too many holy powers). Then I found what I consider the perfect class: the shaman. The spirit of an animal gets refluffed to an angry ghost of some kind, and everything else pretty much falls into place. On the plus side, it has a lot of psionic powers. On the cons side, it has very few necrotic powers, and I picture necromancers more as an high-int than high-wis character.
So, is there any other leader (or leader-ish) class that has a more necrotic tendency and int-primary? And if I you agree that shaman is a decent choice, what would be its level progression? I'm not asking for power picks beyond extremely obvious ones (i.e. one of the necrotic powers of the shaman turns out to be just perfect or something), but things like paragon and epic classes. For example, is the lich epic destiny something to aim for here?
I'd also like to hear race choices. Human is the classic one, of course (I don't think I've ever heard of a non-human necromancer, come to think of it), but I'm open minded.
The Minions
Sky is really the limit, because anything can be refluffed to be undead if one sets ones mind to it, but I'd like to keep this as classic as possible. That means mostly skeletons and zombies and other mindless minions. Yes, a necromancer could conceivably have a vampire at his beck and call, but that once again brings the problem of having multiple independent voices in the same party which I am trying to avoid.
(That said, Diablo II had skeleton spellcasters, so wizard and similar are not out of the question. If you guys know of any other "prior art" examples beyond the obvious skeleton swordsman and skeleton archer, I'd love to hear them.)
In broad strokes, the party should be a balanced one. Since that means different things to different people, lets say it should have at least one of each role (the necromancer is the leader, as per the above), and the fifth wheel being up for grabs. Striker and defender are easy enough, and even a skeleton spear-wielder as a warlord, but I'm not as clear on the controller. Wizard would work, as per the above, but is the archer controller any good?
Finally, what would be a good choice for race? I'm thinking they should be revenants (duh) and refluffed warforgeds (because they are endlessly "re-raisable"), but is there any other picks that can easily be seen as "undead"?
Thanks for your help,
Grey Wolf
PS: It occurs to me that I may be treading old ground, so if a discussion of this exact topic exists, please point me in the right direction, and sorry for the dup.
PPS: And hey, if anyone would like to DM me trying this out, feel free to let me know. I don't do evil character as such, but I can do a differently-moral necromancer (not "evil mad guy trying to take over the world" but "the soul has left, it is just a waste of resources to let bodies rot" adventurer)
I need help building a necromancer+undead minions party in 4e. Suggestions welcomed.
We all know that the 4e necromancer is not particularly good. I suspect that the main reason for this is that any undead raised are by necessity dailies, and thus there cannot be permanent raising of undead minions without breaking the design choices of 4e - and a necromancer without a few skeletons following him around is just not what it should be.
On the other hand, for some time I have been mulling a form of 4e single-person play that could work in PbP: one person controlling a whole team. Now, usually, that is not a good idea since ideally an adventuring group is made up of independent individuals. However, this idea clicked with the concept of a true necromancer. In PbP, a player could play a necromancer and his undead minions, all of whom are fully realised characters but that, from the PoV of role play, are mindless minions controlled by the only actual character, the necromancer.
And this is where I hit the snag: while the high level vision works, the details are beyond my ability. So I am finally taking the plunge and bringing it to the overmind of the OotS forums. Please, guys, let me hear what you would do. I'll start with what I have figured out myself, to get us started.
Ground rule: I am no friend of house rules. I am perfectly happy with refluffing till the cows come home, but I'd rather play the rules of the game as straight as possible. That said, mild house rules are acceptable if they make the concept work much better with just a minor change.
The Necromancer
Ideally, this should be a leader class. His job is to strengthen and maintain his undead minions, who fight for him. If he were the type to blast his enemies with fireblasts, he wouldn't be a necromancer. To my limited knowledge of class variants, this rules out the wizard, so I looked through the priest (usually the second choice for necromancer), but found him to not mesh with what I was looking for (too many holy powers). Then I found what I consider the perfect class: the shaman. The spirit of an animal gets refluffed to an angry ghost of some kind, and everything else pretty much falls into place. On the plus side, it has a lot of psionic powers. On the cons side, it has very few necrotic powers, and I picture necromancers more as an high-int than high-wis character.
So, is there any other leader (or leader-ish) class that has a more necrotic tendency and int-primary? And if I you agree that shaman is a decent choice, what would be its level progression? I'm not asking for power picks beyond extremely obvious ones (i.e. one of the necrotic powers of the shaman turns out to be just perfect or something), but things like paragon and epic classes. For example, is the lich epic destiny something to aim for here?
I'd also like to hear race choices. Human is the classic one, of course (I don't think I've ever heard of a non-human necromancer, come to think of it), but I'm open minded.
The Minions
Sky is really the limit, because anything can be refluffed to be undead if one sets ones mind to it, but I'd like to keep this as classic as possible. That means mostly skeletons and zombies and other mindless minions. Yes, a necromancer could conceivably have a vampire at his beck and call, but that once again brings the problem of having multiple independent voices in the same party which I am trying to avoid.
(That said, Diablo II had skeleton spellcasters, so wizard and similar are not out of the question. If you guys know of any other "prior art" examples beyond the obvious skeleton swordsman and skeleton archer, I'd love to hear them.)
In broad strokes, the party should be a balanced one. Since that means different things to different people, lets say it should have at least one of each role (the necromancer is the leader, as per the above), and the fifth wheel being up for grabs. Striker and defender are easy enough, and even a skeleton spear-wielder as a warlord, but I'm not as clear on the controller. Wizard would work, as per the above, but is the archer controller any good?
Finally, what would be a good choice for race? I'm thinking they should be revenants (duh) and refluffed warforgeds (because they are endlessly "re-raisable"), but is there any other picks that can easily be seen as "undead"?
Thanks for your help,
Grey Wolf
PS: It occurs to me that I may be treading old ground, so if a discussion of this exact topic exists, please point me in the right direction, and sorry for the dup.
PPS: And hey, if anyone would like to DM me trying this out, feel free to let me know. I don't do evil character as such, but I can do a differently-moral necromancer (not "evil mad guy trying to take over the world" but "the soul has left, it is just a waste of resources to let bodies rot" adventurer)