Best and Worst of Necromancy [3.5/Pathfinder] [Archive]

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Jane_Smith

2012-10-30, 04:39 AM

I am going to be reworking the necromancy school a great deal, adding completely new spells and buffing/nerfing or just plain changing existing 3.5/pathfinder necro spells. And I would like the communities help in spotting any problem/broken or underpowered spells that could use some particular love or hammering.

My goals overall at the following for this brew;

1: Remove all alignment descriptors from necromancy spells. Negative energy is not evil/positive is not good in this form, life and death are natural elements like water and fire. Obviously demons/etc can have corrupted versions, but overall necromancy itself is not innately corrupt.

2: Add healing magic to necromancy (except for clerics, who still use conjuration [healing]) so magus, wizards and sorcs can use it.

3: Focus all necromancy spells into 4 subschools and the idea spell themes to fit in them.

Life (Healing/Buff): Healing, Regeneration, Revival, Vitality, Strength, Physical Improvements, Skin-Caccoons, Plant Growth, Explosive Tumors, Callus Exoskeleton-Like Armor, Anti-Death/Undeath, Preservation.

http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/269/c/9/healing_magic_by_jankolas-d2zj6v0.jpg
Life Magic has the power to accelerate the natural healing process, stun aging and decay, or revive dead tissue.

This subschool would focus almost entirely on positive energy and its uses, both for healing and empowerment. Though a very small majority of its higher level spells will be able to somehow harm or impede targets by overstimulating there bodies growth cycle. It can also be used to ignore the effects of aging and death if used carefully.

Blood (Buff/Debuff): Bone Spurs/Blades/Spikes, Mutations, Acidic Blood, Vampirism, Body Puppeteer/Control, Mutations, Undeath.

http://mos.totalfilm.com/images/r/resident-evil-monsters-vs-movie-monsters-10-430-75.jpg
Blood magic manipulates living and dead flesh, blood, and tissue and controls the biological, in benign or horrific ways.

This subschool focuses on the a mix of positive and negative energy to alter physical life forces, such as creating undead or unliving creatures by using magic to imbalance there natural balance of positive and negative energy on there living or dead bodies. It can also cause mutations, disease, blisters, and even allows the caster to control living, undead, and dead bodies like puppets later on, or reshaping a targets bone structure and appearance.

Death (Damage/Debuff): Decay, Rot, Obliteration, Nothingness, Anti-Life/Undeath, Physical Complications, Infertility, Hampers Growth, Crippling, Exhaustion.

http://vaso.webzdarma.cz/gallery/D/Disintegrate.JPG
Death magic controls the forces of entropy. It accelerates living and nonliving matter decay and erosion.

This subschool focuses on pure negative energy, allowing the user to disintegrate objects by eroding them, forcing them to endure rapid aging, killing specific organs within there body, making objects more fragile, rotting and destroying flesh and objects, and even removing matter from existence.

Spirit (Buff/Control): Soul Manipulation, Spiritual Destruction or Revival, Possession, Presence, Non-Physical Matter, Spiritual Empowerment/Soul Fuel.

http://img.aegen.nl/WWK/Ruin%20Ghost.jpg
Spirit magic can control, summon, or destroy spirits and alter the spiritual presence or ethereal state of an soul or object.

This subschool focuses on altering, manipulating, enslaving, freeing, or otherwise creating spirit stuff. Spirit allows possession, body switching, astral projection, ethereal modifications, and at higher levels even the ability to trap, enslave, destroy, or revive souls or spiritual creatures such as outsiders. While this subschool indirectly effects bodies of the living, it has absolutely no directly physical powers or the ability to influence matter.

(So death/life, blood/spirit axis)

4: Non-Spirit Necromancy does not corrupt, harm, or influence a creatures soul. Even Spirit Necromancy can only influence the souls of the living or recently deceased. Once the targets soul has departed to the afterlife, there body is simply a object, and there is nothing innately evil or good about using it - though cultural stigma may say otherwise, the cosmos as a whole does not care. Only a few means, such as revival or a few spirit spells can bring a creatures soul back to the material plane or allow them to materialize as ghosts or wraiths, some of which require the souls approval (Creating a ghost/wraith/banshee/etc is like reviving the dead, you have no control over them, and they must agree to have there soul brought back to the plane of the living, though reanimation of the body does not influence there soul or spirit in any form).

So, fitting with this in mind, I need to find existing necromancy spells to rebalance/remake/etc to fit this idea, and I will be using many of the core pathfinder/3.5 spells in the process, which is why I would like opinions on spells I should rework/buff/nerf from core. Any ideas? :3

One change I plan to make is to remove the fear spell from the necromancy school and add it to enchantment. I am not saying I won't allow SOME fear effects in the necromancy school, but the cause fear/fear spells do not fit the necromancy school as-is. I was thinking of making spirit magic have things like frightful presence, etc style effects by unnerving beasts, etc, but the caster or there target would be the source of the aura, not simply a aoe fear nuke you can throw at someone without being seen.

Winds

2012-10-30, 08:02 AM

I think with good/evil necromancy, you'll need a distinction between willing and unwilling targets, but with pros and cons to each.

Let's take Animate Dead for an example. You can control a set number of undead by Hit Die, and keep control until you release them or they are destroyed.

My suggested approach would be to force some form of check against the motivating force of your undead at intervals. Even mindless undead would get this save, for reasons I'll go into momentarily. Willing undead, meanwhile, have no HD limit to your 'control', but will be destroyed or cease to follow after the interval where you would otherwise check against their save.

What would trigger the save for the undead, though? Let that be rule zero. Write down a reason why they'd resist, and bring it up the first time that threshold would be crossed. Willing undead might tell/remind you that they won't follow.

Possible triggers:
-Distance from grave/lair
-Performing certain actions, or preventing same
-Certain amount of time passes (for intelligent controlled)

So that's my suggestion for how you might approach control in this framework. I hope you find the idea useful.

As to your overall intent, I like that your framework has an actual subschool for healing. Setting Cure spells as Conjuration (healing) always seemed silly to me.

Jane_Smith

2012-10-30, 08:49 AM

I am confused, why would I make them get a save to resist your control?... To make the spell more "good" aligned? I think you missed the point I am -completely- removing all forms of alignment, moral, or ethical issues away from the necromancy school. Unless they were themed specifically to be evil or good, these spells do exactly what they say they do, and they will not be good or evil innately for what they do.

On top of that, don't you think that would add a lot of needless bookkeeping to the game? Necromancers can acquire quite a lot of undead, remembering how far you can take them and so on is a bit annoying to say the least. And it removes one of the most loved things of necromancy - the completely loyal army of skeleton warriors. If even your mindless thralls that you waste spell slots and gold on mats to raise can resist your orders, then you might as well not even bother and just throw out death bolts at your enemies.

Blightedmarsh

2012-10-30, 02:03 PM

I like the thought of the three rules of the three dead (no not a repeat). Its probably just fluff but I hope it helps.

Integrity of mind:

Absent mind; Does exactly what they are ordered or programed without any thought
Instinctive mind: Reacts animisticly. Can attack on its own initiative.
Intelligent mind: Thinks, plans and decides based on the mind it posses on death.

Semblance of form:

Ethereal form: Has a spirit body
Relic form: Is made of dead or inanimate flesh/bone
Unliving form: Its body has a necrotic semblance of life.

Persistence of vigor

Instant vigor: The dead is animated for as long as the spell lasts and is then destroyed
Returning vigor: The dead lasts until the spell ends but may be reanimated at a later event.
External/Extended vigor: The dead is animate until destroyed

***************

I envisage this as a three by three by three matrix of the major distinct kinds of undead you can animate, and that is completely setting aside hit dice which would be an outside rider to the spell.

Say you wished to animate an NPC as an undead: Nancy (8HD).

In this example you want to craft an animation item. You want to give her a spirit body, returning vigor and intelligence. You can give her up to 8HD depending on how high a level/XP/Gold you wish to expend.

In this example using the material component: Tooth (Nancy) you craft a fetish of summon spirit (Nancy) for which you use one of your prepared spells to spells to cast. The higher the spell level the stronger the spell is.

**********************

On the question of harming spirits or not I have a few thoughts to air.

1) Necro-daemology: The spells you are using manipulate or enjoin evil entities to do you bidding (whether you are aware of it or not). This gives them an in to take and torment the soul of the animated dead as a form of payment for their services. I would imaging that these are the kind of spell that most necromancers would use unknowingly or uncaringly. For the real scholar there is a range of ethically subjective necrotic spells guarantied to be 100% infernal free.

2) Am I bovaard?! You have just cut off the guys head, and that's not evil right there?;if yes then is tormenting his spirit any more evil than killing him? If no then he must have had it coming and all this is doing is giving him a little taste of whats waiting for him in the hereafter.

Jane_Smith

2012-10-30, 03:29 PM

Winds

2012-10-30, 04:34 PM

I think I just went too far with your asking about existing spells. You're right, that wouldn't be of any real use for non-aligned spells...I was working too much from the standpoint of 'used by any alignment'. Sorry.

Blightedmarsh

2012-10-30, 05:08 PM

As for the negro-daemonology, I said I am trying to make a set of necromancy spells completely DEVOID of ANY reason to be labelled evil on a cosmic/alignment/etc scale except for situational usage. I know people really seem to like branding necromancy as bad or giving it evil fluff for flavor, but not for this brew. I really want to stamp out that stigma for this set of spells except for unique spells.

All I am saying is that that could have been where necromancy has come from but not what it has become or is becoming. In the same way that the internal combustion engine is a development and replacement of the steam engine or how neurosurgery and antibiotic has replaced leach craft; progress even in magic. It would explain why they they have such poor press; a hold over from the bad old days before we knew any better.

That there are warlocks and their ilk still out there besmearing the fine craft of necromancy with their barbaric ways is a tragic fact and one that every right thinking necromancer should deplore. Which brings us to the "enlightened dismiss": a cleverly constructed spell for elegantly picking apart the shoddily thrown together evil necrotic constructs those obsolete bodge merchants have the audacity to call undead (an opposed spellcraft check; you win and the undead constructed with old school/evil necromancy is either tuned or destroyed depending on HD and caster level; a catnip/low level spell that can be boosted to take out much more powerful opponents or more of them). Once you have disposed of their pawns you can show these ammatures how necromancy should be done.:smallwink:

For the 3 rules/3 dead, I like that idea as a general guideline for undead power tiers. On a similar note It would be neat if you could customize your own undead with 1-5 different spells or so to arrange there individual stats and use hit dice/your max amount of undead you can control as a form of point buy system. Like, you can give one of your undead +2 limbs to hold weapons or shields or claw attack with and +2 str for +1 HD. Basically corpse crafting feats in the form of spells that push's up the undeads hit dice as a balancing factor/giving you less minions for a few strong ones. Almost like undead metamagic. Lol, Meta Corpse'ing... that is actually an amazing idea...

Much more animation flexibility and that's without considering the base metamagics (quicken, empower, extend, maximize) or the base creature type.

The 3/3 matrix I was discussing gives a possibility of 27 very broad different categories of undead from mindless instant unliving to intelligent skeletal eternals.

The example I gave was based on the premise of a spirit or undead familiar. So instead of a raven you could have Casper, thing (http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=N6K&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=np&biw=1352&bih=608&tbm=isch&tbnid=TZPglnDOs0lvgM:&imgrefurl=http://protagonist.wikia.com/wiki/Thing_%28The_Addams_Family%29&docid=aFhn7N4qqq56MM&imgurl=http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120813231020/protagonist/images/e/e9/Afthing1.jpg&w=448&h=336&ei=IE2QUJaYEMGh0QWPy4HIBw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=126&vpy=190&dur=3189&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=137&ty=84&sig=102019499227460323757&page=1&tbnh=144&tbnw=191&start=0&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,i:80) or pretty much any other boggle you can think off (like a floating skull with a ghoulish bag of tricks wedged in its mouth and a portal ring in one eye for you to see/shoot though when you hold onto the other one).

As for soul damage/destruction - I do not find it evil. Destroying say, a mass murdering psychopathic cult leader's soul (Hitler comes to mind for some reason) so his followers cant just revive him tomorrow would be a good-aligned prevention method, or at the very least a neutral action. After all, the gods use souls as a form of battery power/food from there followers, and those who worship no gods or find themselves in demons hands gets devoured and dissolved anyway, and the few that slip out of ALL of the afterlife's nets just float off into oblivion. The destruction of a soul is not all horrible, and its not like they are going to feel pain or loss so even by the cosmic/karmic flow of things, its not corrupt.

See; your not bothered.

Jane_Smith

2012-10-30, 06:25 PM

Blightedmarsh

2012-10-31, 01:18 AM

Well, that would be 2 separate sets of necromancy from your suggestion, and the evil one is not the one I want to even touch or think about right now. I can come up with some pretty sick and vile stuff, but that has its own place, I want to make the pure-necromancy only for now. If a time comes I can get this much done, then I will work on little expansions. Perhaps druidic necromancy, fiendish necromancy, etc.

I just imagined that it would basically be any necrotic or negative spell with an [evil] tag wrapped round it; I mean negative energy isn't evil in off itself so how does evil get involved anyway? because its a trap for the foolish and unlearnered.

One, is that positive and negative energy will now "BOTH" harm undead. Undead in this brew will be created from a mix of negative and positive energy, and unliving as well (being more positive then negative, and undead being more negative then positive). Using positive or negative energy spells from the life or death school will imbalance this fusion and destabilize them. Only 2 things can heal undead, spells and abilities that repair objects, such as the Repair tree such as an artifcer which directly relates to objects or nonliving matter, and blood magic. I plan to add a few spells that directly effect only undead/nonliving in the blood sub school - and they will be slightly more potent then normal healing spells, but won't work on living, dead, or other objects, only undead/unliving creatures.

Yes; I like. I imagine that a blast of pure positive energy is about as likely to heal someone as a flamerthower. Necromancy it seems to me should be about balance, understanding natures cycles and manipulating them to your advantage.

I plan to use this as an excuse for why vampires and ghouls seek blood/flesh/etc to sustain themselves as a credible food source. There positive or negative energy balance decays in one way or the other over time. Ghouls require dead flesh reeking with negative energy, and vampires need fresh blood that contains positive energy to maintain themselves. Lichs, skeletons, zombies, etc are maintained completely by magic for the long term, and thus don't have to worry about stability issues. I would assume this means a more experienced high level necromancer could "fix" the vampires blood lust or ghouls hunger by making an object or fixing that flaw in there undead designs. Also in most myths ghouls and vampires were created by divine means as curses - which would explain there imperfections while maintaining there vast numbers, cause a necromancer would have been able to permanently fix or make stable versions eons ago unless someone was still making them flawed on purpose.

An exerp from my current set up for necrotheistic vampires you might find useful:

.....................

Negative heart

Rather than an a normal soul vampires posses a font of negative energy within them centered. This is caged within a standing positive energy field inside their hearts.

They absorb ambient positive energy, this is then carried to their negative font by their blood. The energy is annihilated within the heart releasing "vital energy" or Qi, this allows the the volition to move, to think and to wield magic; it is what gives them their unlife.

If cut off from or deprived positive energy the negative energy in their heart builds up, gradually eroding their semblance to humanity and eventually overwhelming them.

Blood:

Whilst they produce their own "Qi" they need to draw on the Qi of sentient beings because they lack some essential spiritual element and need to supplement this from their diet in the same way we need vitamins.

The quickest and most efficient way to do this is to open someones veins and drink the life energy that spills out with the blood. They can do it through touch alone but it takes an awful lot longer and most people will sense that something potentially harmful is being done to them.

If they don't feed will result in a diminished connection to the negative plane. This will drastically weaken them, reducing them to a comatose state if left for long enough.

Common Abilities

Hunters thirst: This is a rage like ability of X use per night. It gives boosted movement speed and damage, it represents the predatory abilities of a vampire during the hunt.

Paralytic bite: Their bites have the ability to paralyses their victims, allowing them to feed comparatively safely.

Predatory senses: The get night vision and a better sense of smell.

Hypnotic eyes: A weak suggestion/confusion ability.

Enslave mortal: By injecting their blood into a mortal victim a vampire can over the course of a few nights enslave them, turning them into a human familiar.

Daylight

Daylight is not good for vampires but far from instantly fatal. They can get away with the hood/robes outfit but they wont be particularly comfortable under the mid day sun. The main problem is the fact that their eyes are very light sensitive though heat exhaustion is also a factor. Magic darkness and bad weather help considerably but they still have to be careful.

The positive energy in daylight is simply far too much and too pure for their systems to handle. Their absorption systems all but shut down to protect them, shutting off most of their abilities and making them weaker.

For vampire sunlight is an addictive narcotic with long term health implications. The can handle it and even enjoy it to a certain extend but it all about moderation. "Daywalkers" are self destructive junkies; "Kin don't let kin do days". Given enough exposure daywalkers develop a complete resistance to sunlight, however this "burns off" most of their abilities including their immortality...........

************

Poetic names for your necrotic subschools could be Vital, Sanguine, Mortal and Breath respectively. Their does appear to be a considerable degree of thematic overlap between Blood and life however.

Deepbluediver

2012-10-31, 11:39 AM

1: Remove all alignment descriptors from necromancy spells. Negative energy is not evil/positive is not good in this form, life and death are natural elements like water and fire. Obviously demons/etc can have corrupted versions, but overall necromancy itself is not innately corrupt.
That's a stylistic choice, I think, but what do you plan on doing for uncontrolled undead? Are they just icky, or is the negative energy empowering them inherently destructive to positive-energy based life?
I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just curious. One of my favorite descriptions of animating undead was that it created a sort of "mad dog on a chain". That way the spell wasn't evil in it's casting, but had a very large potential to get out of hand, which provided fluff for necromancy's less-than-popular reputation.

2: Add healing magic to necromancy (except for clerics, who still use conjuration [healing]) so magus, wizards and sorcs can use it.
I did the same thing in my magic fix, with the Necromancy (healing) subschool, but why do arcane magic users need these spells added to their already extensive spell lists? Healing is just about the ONLY thing they can't do easily.

3: Focus all necromancy spells into 4 subschools and the idea spell themes to fit in them.

Life (Healing/Buff)

Blood (Buff/Debuff)

Death (Damage/Debuff)

Spirit (Buff/Control)

An interesting division, certainly; I think I might steal some of them for my magic fix as a way to divy it up. I'll certainly credit you if I do. The only thing I wonder about is the "Blood" subschool, which seems a lot like Transmutation. Yes they are unpleasent sounding effects, but changing a living body does not really feel like a necromancy trait.

One thing that you might consider are dual-school spells (I forget what book first introduced them, it might have been the PHBII, I'll try to check in a minute). For example, I shifted the Heal Wounds spells into Necromancy, and I figured the Regeneration spells could be Necromancy (healing)/Transmutation

So, fitting with this in mind, I need to find existing necromancy spells to rebalance/remake/etc to fit this idea, and I will be using many of the core pathfinder/3.5 spells in the process, which is why I would like opinions on spells I should rework/buff/nerf from core. Any ideas? :3
I've always thought that summoning/conjuring/commanding magic should not be of the "fire and forget" variety. A spell like Animate Undead should either make it harder to cast other spells or force some sort of check to keep control, which represents the need for continual mental attention from the caster. I figured it was a nice way to cap the potential for an unlimited army of undead, but I'd understand if you don't want to go that route as it can get pretty complicated.

One change I plan to make is to remove the fear spell from the necromancy school and add it to enchantment. I am not saying I won't allow SOME fear effects in the necromancy school, but the cause fear/fear spells do not fit the necromancy school as-is.
This sounds like a good idea. Even in the later splat-books, there are several spells that seem to be labeled as Necromancy just because of their dark/spooky/creepy effects, despite the fact that they where clearly more similar to Conjuration, Evocation, or other schools.

Blightedmarsh

2012-10-31, 12:12 PM

What about three schools:

Vitality: Alows you to:

Raise the dead
Heal the dead
Buff the dead

Entropy:

Direct damage
Debuffing
Dismiss/destoy/turn undead

Spirit Breath

Rase/summon spirits
Control undead
Buff spirits

As to healing what I am saying is that the human body is an incredibly complex organism; healing is not something a dabbler can excel at. Necromancy is a rewarding but exacting discipline which with a bit of cross training can be adapted for healing some what; its just that most serious scholars of necromancy wouldn't have the time to do anything more than dabble. Say that necromantic healing primarily works on the dead but that a given meta-magic feat can be applied to make them work to a degree on the living.

Deepbluediver

2012-10-31, 12:35 PM

What about three schools:
*snip*

Hmm, I like the names for those, certainly, but what about a slightly different division:

Vitality:

Healing (for divine casters)
Dismiss/destroy/turn undead
Create free-willed or positive energy undead (i.e. the Deathless, from BoED)

Entropy:

Direct damage
Debuffing against living creatures

Spirit:

Create and Control negative-energy undead
Heal/Buff negative-energy undead
Raise/summon/control spirits

The categories in each are (roughly) listed in order of importance.
I think this works out a little better because most of the postive-energy style effects end up in Vitality, the anti-living creature effects are in Entropy, and the Spirit effects are those boosting or controlling the energy empowering the more traditional undead.

Jane_Smith

2012-10-31, 02:26 PM

Ok, the thing is? I am giving arcane casters healing no matter what. They had it in the original dnd and 2.0, and they handled it just fine, I don't really care about treading on divine casters toes, the entire theme about this homebrew rework is to unlock necromancy's true potential. And again, I simply want to remove the alignment descriptors in this brew, I don't care what the alignment descriptors for any necromancy spells are in brew.

Player's have been needing a non-god based healing class now for some time, and the only thing that comes close is the ARCANE CASTING CLASS Healer from complete miniatures - healers and paladins both have strict codes of conduct, and healers are virtually useless because ALL they can do is heal/debuff. Ontop of that, bards can heal slightly. If bards and healers use healing arcane spells, then wtf is keeping a wizard from learning those spells via scroll form? And don't give that stupid excuse of 'Because a wizard would find them beneath him" - that is just your personal opinion, I would hit that stuff like a ball of sugar.

So yes, as I stated now like 3-4 times, the precise goal of this homebrew is to remove alignment ties to necromancy and to add healing to necromancy for arcane casters. You guys keep trying to bring it back on track to the core alignment idea of undead/etc = bad orr back to the core "Divine can only heal" stuff, and I am really getting tired of repeating myself on this topic - especially when I asked for spell's that are problematic or to weak that need to be rebalanced and nobody has suggested anything besides animate dead (and half of those suggestions are keep the evil variants, which I don't care to do because its the opposite of what i am trying to do by removing alignments... - though I am thankful for the other ideas such as the 9-axis/etc).

Sorry, but I feel like crap, if I seem kinda bitchy right now its because my patience is a bit low today, its nothing personal.

Oh, and as for the "beasts on a leash" aspect of necromancy? Undead are like 75% negative energy, and yes, as embodiments of death and destruction and the banes of anything positive energy related, they would become nocturnal when not enslaved by a necromancer, and they would kill living matter. Plantlife, vermin, and sentient humanoids. Its like animating a flame - once its not under your control, it will follow its natural instinct, destroy everything around it and burn the world. But that does not make it evil in and of itself. It would only be evil in the case of vampires/etc who have sentience and choose to do so like it was a drug addiction.

And unliving are 75% positive - and they despise undead and negative energy/etc and will seek to destroy them by any means necessary, even with a majority of them being sentient, considering unliving usually retain there memories/sentience.

Blightedmarsh

2012-10-31, 02:28 PM

So necromancy is about the delicate balance between the positive and the negative:

Vitalists: steadily build up a surge of positive power with a negative counterpoint. They gently infuse it into their targets to make them better.

Entropists: Violently swirl imbalanced streams of unmixed positive and negative energy together and smash it into their targets like an explosive jackhammer.

Spiritualists: seamlessly blend positive and negative together in a delicate tracery of power emanating from the breath.

Player's have been needing a non-god based healing class now for some time, and the only thing that comes close is the ARCANE CASTING CLASS Healer from complete miniatures - healers and paladins both have strict codes of conduct, and healers are virtually useless because ALL they can do is heal/debuff. Ontop of that, bards can heal slightly. If bards and healers use healing arcane spells, then wtf is keeping a wizard from learning those spells via scroll form? And don't give that stupid excuse of 'Because a wizard would find them beneath him" - that is just your personal opinion, I would hit that stuff like a ball of sugar.

Fine healing casters. I don't think a wisard would find it beneth him, I think he would find it beyond him but if arcane spells are capable of runing themselves mostly then I don't see any reason why they shouldn't use "black box" healing spells.

Jane_Smith

2012-10-31, 02:37 PM

I still like the idea of the 4 subschools moreso then 3; spiritual reflects a mix of positive/negative that focuses on non-physical matter, and blood reflects a mix on matter, death focuses on pure negative, and life focuses on pure positive.

Also, while similar to transmutation, blood necromancy has one main difference: Blood can only alter physical life - it has to be a biological target, even if its a dead corpse or a plant. Transmutation can work on stone, etc. Part of a major theme of necromancy is understanding biological science and how bodies and souls work, so it would be rather obvious a form of blood magic would arise within it.

Blightedmarsh

2012-10-31, 03:02 PM

4 schools then:

1) Healing
2) Animating
3) Blasting
4) Spirits.

A necromancer focuses on one school for a benefit and a small penitently in the opposing school but may freely dabble in all 4.

Healing/blood is a suport lore designed to let people hit harder, take more knocks and get back into the fight. Offensively it has an on touch harm spell and a range of debilitating status effects as the mage uses his power to directly attack his opponents biology.

Animation is obviously about the creation of allies and using them. Crafting and buffing the dead would also be here.

Blasting is a balls to the wall negative/positive energy attack lore. It has some negative status effects as well as feather fall (by negating mass) as well as darkness/light strobe spells.

Spirit is a tactical lore full of off the wall options and unconventional uses. Thinks like ethereal, unseen lurker grasping hands and so on and so forth.

Silva Stormrage

2012-10-31, 03:46 PM

I am looking forward to this. I always hated how necromancy in 3.5 is really just the "Evil school" where they threw all the random evil spells into the school. I will comment more once you get spells up as I don't have much comments on how the sub schools should be split up.

Deepbluediver

2012-10-31, 03:52 PM

Ok, the thing is? I am giving arcane casters healing no matter what. They had it in the original dnd and 2.0, and they handled it just fine,

You are, of course, free to do whatever you want with your 'brew, but "it worked in previous editions so it will work in 3.5" is not a convincing argument to make.

One of the biggest issues with the various roles (or classes) in 3.5 is that magic-users are far more versatile than non-magic users, and giving them the ability to heal is just one more brick on that side of the scale.

I don't really care about treading on divine casters toes, the entire theme about this homebrew rework is to unlock necromancy's true potential. And again, I simply want to remove the alignment descriptors in this brew, I don't care what the alignment descriptors for any necromancy spells are in brew.

For people who are concerned with balance, though, this is kind of a big deal, because in one school, with relatively few or any restrictions, you are setting it up so that the Necromancer can: deal direct damage, summon hordes of minions, control or manipulate people, and heal. All with no apparent limits via alignment or roleplay.

If that's the direction you want to go in, fine, but just be aware that your version of "unlocking true potential" is setting up a type of magic that is VERY powerful.

Player's have been needing a non-god based healing class now for some time, and the only thing that comes close is the ARCANE CASTING CLASS Healer from complete miniatures - healers and paladins both have strict codes of conduct, and healers are virtually useless because ALL they can do is heal/debuff.

To quote the Miniatures Handbook:

Healer
Spells: A healer casts divine spells (the same type of spells available to clerics), which are drawn from the healer spell list given below.
emphasis mine, just so we're all on the same page

Personally, I would agree that players need more ways to heal, other than relying on good-aligned divine magic users. But I don't think giving it to arcane necromancy is a good way to do it.
I would prefer to improve the Heal skill so that it can actually heal, and that way any class or party who needs additional healing can spend the skill points to get it.

Most players will tell you that from an optimization perspective, in combat healing is less than ideal, and clerics and paladins can heal just fine out of combat while maintaining their in-combat offensive abilities.

The Healer class has issues because, as you said, it lacks offensive power and many other classes (such as druids) can heal almost as effectively, and the paladin code of conduct is a poorly-worded anchor around the neck of the entire class. But those problems won't be solved by granting healing to wizards and sorcerers.

Ontop of that, bards can heal slightly. If bards and healers use healing arcane spells, then wtf is keeping a wizard from learning those spells via scroll form? And don't give that stupid excuse of 'Because a wizard would find them beneath him" - that is just your personal opinion, I would hit that stuff like a ball of sugar.

It's true that bards can heal, somewhat, but they also lack the offensive firepower and versatility of other full casters. In addition, the only necromancy spells are the bards list are the fear-effect type ones, which we agree are more enchantment based anyway. It all comes together to form a very different flavor of magic.
The better (IMO, admittedly) parts of D&D have never been designed with "they can do it so I can, too" as a driving philosophy.

Personally, I don't really have a problem with arcane casters being able to use healing magic. I think that traditionally it was supposed to be that arcane magic users couldn't employ positive energy, but then what rational did WotC they have for giving them the ability to channel negative energy into undead? There are inconsistencies to be sure, and you've given me a lot to think about.

I would rather see the non-undead creating aspects of necromancy fleshed out (pun intended :smallbiggrin:) and the undead-creation parts left strictly to divine magic under the heading of "it's dealing with souls and stuff". Healing spells can be added to arcane casters' spell lists, but at a higher level than the equivalent divine versions, and the fluff can be that it's harder for them to tap into positive/negative energy than elemental forces (fire, cold, electric, etc)
There is a class called the Dread Necromancer (from Heroes of Horror) which is an arcane caster (I think) that specializes in easily creating and controlling undead bodies, and would make a nice exception to the rule. That way you would have the various aspects neatly divided up.

My comments are largely balance-inspired, because that's what I think about, but you seem opposed to just about anything that would limit necromancy's power, so I have a feeling you won't like my suggestions.

I am really getting tired of repeating myself on this topic - especially when I asked for spell's that are problematic or to weak that need to be rebalanced and nobody has suggested anything besides animate dead
When some one says "Evocation" people think Fireball.
When some one says "Transmutation" people think Shapeshift.
When some one says "Necromancy" people think "skeletons and zombies".

The walking, talking (sort of) undead are the biggest draw for the necromancy school, so of course it's the first and most common thing people think of. And in terms of mechanics and roleplay, the thing with the most potential to cause problems.
As far as I know, most of the the other existing necromancy spells are fairly balanced. I'm honestly a little uncertain here, because most of the games I've played in only had undead as enemies, and players avoided the rest of the school because of the unfortunate implications.

We've given you our opinions on the healing idea, which you summarily dismissed.
Perhaps if you wrote up some of the new spells you mentioned in your first post we could critique those instead.

And unliving are 75% positive - and they despise undead and negative energy/etc and will seek to destroy them by any means necessary, even with a majority of them being sentient, considering unliving usually retain there memories/sentience.

Most of the undead from RAW are, I believe, either mindless shells or possesed with only basic animalistic intelligence. They also tend to have only as much strength as the necromancer behind them. If the majority of these new undead are going to be keeping or retaining their intellect and/or personality, that is a change with major implications. Are they happy to be returned once again to the mortal coil? Or are they enraged at having been plucked from their eternal rest? Do they retain their former combat or spellcasting abilities? Does it depend on the spell used, or on the target?

Jane_Smith

2012-10-31, 04:06 PM

Deepbluediver

2012-10-31, 05:30 PM

Unliving are not undead... Unliving are from various sources just as libris mortis, etc. Most -undead- are mindless, etc. Undead are made from reanimating a corpse. Unliving are made from altering a living body, I believe.

Sorry, my mistake. I misread that paragraph and that it just said "living". I will try to double check on the details for the creation of one of the Deathless.

Blightedmarsh

2012-11-01, 01:12 AM

What are the limits, what should necromancy be able to do and unable to then. It needs to be thematically sound otherwise it would be no better than it is at the moment.

Jane_Smith

2012-11-01, 04:16 AM

In this, necromancy will be the school that manipulates and governs Life and Death - and anything in between. Healing, Destruction, Reanimation, Revival, Gorwth and Decay. However while powerful, it has some disadvantages;

1: A majority of the spells can only target living/dead/undead creatures. Only a handful of destruction spells can affect a golem, ghosts, magical constructs, outsiders, elementals, or creature without a proper biology or reliance on positive or negative energy - and most of those destruction/death spells will be based on erosion/decay, such as forcefully aging an object with an onslaught of negative energy. Some life spells can also preserve non-living matter in the opposite way, but that is about it.

2: Spirit magic is the only spells in necromancy who can even try to touch ghosts, and while it can effect the incorporeal where the rest of necromancy simply cannot (Even with death spells), it further limits itself to being completely unable to effect any form of physical matter, let alone living/undead/dead creatures.

3: Undead and Unliving creatures made via the blood subschool will now be vulnerable to both negative and positive energy, making both good and evil clerics, paladins, druids, bards, and now sorc/wizards who have access to healing magic, even more potent against them. Undead now have a much smaller niche to heal themselves, though I am thinking perhaps craft checks can be used in place of a heal check, and/or heal to stitch them up. Don't worry, I plan to make some undead creatures who can heal other ones via aura or by sharing its own blood/etc.

4: Clerics, Druids, and Paladins are still better overall healers and supportive roles then a wiz/sorc who decides to take on the path of life-magic, due to channel energy, domain powers, lay on hands, auras, spontaneous cure spells, pets, so on, not to mention heavy armor and shields that let them get into melee range to actually use that healing at touch range and survive. Ontop of that, wiz/sorc's who do go life magic are wasting spell slots they could use for other utility or combat options such as battlefield control, one shot cc spells like sleep or color spray, etc. If anything, this can potential nerf the wizard and make them a lower teir of power, though the fully healed party will likely not complain!

5: Feats/prcs/etc that say specifically "conjuration [healing] spells will not function on spells of necromancy [healing], making even healing-focused wiz/sorc necromancers unable to properly buff there magic without the aid of metamagic feats. I will plan to make some homebrew feats to go with them, but they will not be able to use currently published material to help. This also gives clerics/paladins/druids a retaining edge for there roles.

6: About 80% of Blood Magic, and about 50% of Life and Death magic, will require melee touch to deliver the spells. While wiz/sorcs will get many more options in the expanded necromancy, they will also be risky ones in combat. Spirit magic, being in its nature, spiritual and not effecting physical matter, will likely just be ranged touch or "within clear sight/range, they get hit" kinda auto-hit system.

7: Blood, Life, and Spirit magic will have almost no means of doing hit point damage. And death has very little cc and no buff spells within it. However sense were talking about disadvantages of necromancy i have planned as a whole, this does not really count.

Set

2012-11-01, 09:02 AM

Random thoughts;

The Blood sub-school could perhaps just be called Body. The association with blood (or bone) might make sense from a thematic association (with vampires or skeletons), but Body is a more 'neutral' sounding classification. Similarly, it's perhaps a bit more technically accurate, as the sub-school isn't all about blood, it's also about manipulating bones and flesh, and, perhaps, at more advanced levels, nerves and skin and sensory organs and whatnot.

Arcane healing already exists with the Bard, and, in Pathfinder, the Alchemist and Witch, and the game hasn't imploded, so go for it! The suggestion of *also* improving the Heal skill also makes sense, but completely outside of an exploration of necromantic / arcane healing (or, via the more anatomically specific explorations of the animator or 'classic' zombie-making necromancer / 'resurrection man,' perhaps even in conjunction with magical necromancy).

As long as 'conjuring' negative energy for inflict spells is Necromancy, then 'conjuring' positive energy for cure spells should also be Necromancy, for all classes, including clerics, IMO. The school of a spell shouldn't change because Clerics don't like the word Necromancy (even if, many of them being evil, some of they *do* like the word Necromancy...). The decision to change cure spells to conjuration in 3rd edition was odd, since a spell using positive energy to heal and a spell using negative energy to harm should be the same school, either both conjuration, or both necromancy, and, IMO, both should remain necromancy, if necromancy is to be a school at all.

Negative energy is all about either the negation of energy, draining away life and light and hope and power and vital essence. Spells that play on this to either create alternate means to dispel magic (draining away magical power) or make an area dark (draining away light) or cold (draining away heat) would add some offensive punch and utility to the Necromancy school.

Negative energy is also associated with entropy, the breaking down of matter, or the increasing of age. The best in-game mechanic for that sort of damage is to use acid damage, IMO, creating yet another potential damage type that a Necromancer might be able to access. He might picture it as accelerating the effects of aging on someone's body, or as allowing the river between the worlds of life and death (Styx, Duat, whatever) to wash over them and erode their flesh away, but either way, acid damage would be the 'type' of damage done.

Positive energy creates and engenders life. Ebola is life. Cancer is life. Amoebic dystentery is life. Swarms of rot grubs are life. Spells like contagion and even verminous variations on summon swarm could be Necromancy (positive energy). Positive energy could power all sorts of terrible things, creating plagues or making tumors erupt out of peoples bodies and attack them with tentacles like some horror out of one of Clive Barker's tamer nightmares.

Negative energy is antithetical to life. See the above list (ebola, cancer, swarms of rot grubs, etc.). Spells like remove disease, or spells that purge infestations or repel / kill vermin or sterilize tainted foodstuffs or cleanse water teeming with harmful bacteria or even render someone barren for a short time so that they can have adult fun without any change of 'consequences' could all be Necromancy (negative energy), making negative energy the tool of choice for the surgeon or the butcher or the food-preparer-to-the-King or that guy who shows up at the brothel once a week to make sure that all the working folk are both free from infection and won't unexpectedly get pregnant.

Jane_Smith

2012-11-01, 09:42 AM

I had planned to actually make "Negative" and "Positive" actual energy types with energy resistances/immunities to them, so the acid would not be entirely necessary. Like a necromancer could perhaps use a life ward or death ward spell via craft wondrous item to make cheap little talismans for there undead creations to give them Neg/Pos Resistance 5-30, which would similarly affect channel energy.

DJDeMiko

2012-11-01, 03:50 PM

If you give wiz/sorc complete access to healing on par with say a druid (let alone a cleric) you make them THE most powerful class in the game. They didn't get healing as part of 3.5's balance system.

Now if that's your campaign, sure. I personally agree that someone who can use magic to tear flesh open, would probably be able to learn magic to close that flesh back up.

Here's a crazy idea. Split Necromancer off as its own class with its own unique spell list. Maybe use the pathfinder school spec concept. THese classes focus so much on necromantic magic (including getting access to healing spells) that they gain very limited access to non-necromantic spells.

Int based class version - Necromancers gain 3 new spells known per level, 2 must be necromantic. Due to the necromancers obsession with necromantic magic, they rarely learn spells from other schools. Necromancers can only prepare one spell outside a necromancy school per two necromancy schools per spell level

OR something like

necromancers always add all known necromantic spells to their spell book, however, the cost to prepare a spell outside necromancy is 2 slots.

Blightedmarsh

2012-11-02, 02:04 AM

Seconded but it is kind of another project.

I have always had this mental image of arcane healing as being the most mentally exacting of all the disciplines; something that only an expert or a specialist would even attempt. Bards do it because they don't know how much damage they could cause. Would it be plausible to add healing skill to the difficulty check or as an entry requirement?

Vargual

2012-11-03, 10:16 PM

I like most of what I see.....

(Please read to the end.... this does create a NON evil or NON corrupting necromancy school)

My thoughts on all this take em or leave em.....

My main issue is that negative energy is..... that it IS dangerous to living creatures.
It is call Negative energy for a reason and that is because it is an energy that has a Negative effect...... It cancels positive energy, breaks it down what ever.....

This is why so many people are having a hard time with the no corruption issue.

So to combat this issue:

Come up with a reason why In your world necromancy is not evil, and does not corrupt its users....... and do not just say "Because"

Instead of negative energy being evil it is just very harmful to living beings

Here is the explanation I would use:

I would say instead that Necromantic energy is not evil but does break down living tissue, and the first area of the body which is universally affected are areas of the brain which control self control, concepts of morality, conscious ect......

With this in mind to remove this adverse affect you could

Ideas:
Feat: 1 feat that allows safe usage, handling, casting, and potion making of
Skill: Comes as a built in as a specialist skill (Safe handling of negative energy)
****Definition a little extra spell energy is used to contain or envelope the negative energy being used*****
Spell: meta magic spell's that will safely contain the next negative energy spell cast. (You could also do a duration-ed version to affect multiple spells)
***** usually this affect the 3 spell levels below them ie a 3rd level spell would safely control a sell of 1st 2nd or 3rd level. But because this is campaign setting fluff you could do even level spells. For example a level 1 spell would contain a level one necromantic spell.

So now you have safe negative energy use at your disposal with a reason your players can understand and is plausable. This also creates interesting campaign fluff.
You could have wild or rouge necromancers that cast unprotected spells.
You could have political bodies guild,states,cities,countries who require necromancers to register to protect populations from negative energy bleed over.
You could have in the reverse a unenlightened population in certain areas that still aggressively believe that all negative energy and necromancy is evil.
You could even "enlighten" a player spell caster to all this in game and help them "discover" how to safely used necromancy.....

I like the positive/negative energy affecting undead
HOWEVER: I would make all undead require a "food source of some kind" There are just to many thoughts back and forth on this issue how I boil it down is: If a caster is going to summon he or she most of the time wants a hungry aggressive creature not a full passive one....... Yes if it is a temp summons the spell could be designed to sustain the creatures food requirements but it would be less aggressive if so..... and require extra spell energy ie... a higher level spell...... Magic is well magical but does not do anything for free you want an extra effect its going to cost ya....

note [/B]

Vargual

2012-11-03, 10:44 PM

Other thoughts:

I am not wild about acid as a part of Necromancy schools I see it just like the fear spell...... casting an acid spell would be evocation, or if created from substances that already exist alteration, or it could even be acid directly summoned from a diff plane although that would be potent magic.......

I am not sure about the spirit stuff? That does not seem like something negative energy should effect directly by its nature... Dont get me wrong as a magical source of energy you could make a spell that is fulled by it to try and get an effect that manipulates the spirit.... I just think it would be like pushing a train up a hill...... not effective.... Messing with the spirit is a clerical divine area Or at the very least Inter planer magic

MY PET PEVES
Undead should be effected by criticals. I always tried to argue with my DM that if I cut off an arm or leg or head of an undead in one hit that could be the same thing as a crit..... Think about it for a moment you come up on a Corporal undead creature and smash in its spine right at the hip or just stove in its head...... It will be done and just flop on the ground..... My argument here is that summoned undead are not supernatural in nature..... One could have specific uber buff super natural undead that are immune to crits but this would usually have some kind of regen involved, just dont blanket the whole sub group as immune...... That goes for ice dmg as well, ever seen a dead body frozen solid look in your freezer and just try to move that chicken wing still attached to the breast..... if magic tried to force such a creature to move it would just break apart... Even partially frozen would cause such stiff movement as to be non combat effective.... I think ice would have more of an effect than fire would...... if lit up you would have to wait for the corpse to burn down wich would take a loooong time.

To help control Wizard healing
wizard healing could be very very specific ulike its divine counter part
wizard healing would have many spells that do the same as the one divine version. So instead of just casting "Heal" a wizard would have to cast "mend bone or greater mend bone ect... Or Coagulation ie.... stop bleeding and a dozen other type of healing spell.... Now each spell could restore a very minor hp amount in addition..... There could also be a generic restore hit point spell but it should be less effective then the heal line of divine spells...... and require a second non generic spell to be cast to work. IT would NOT remove any status effects
Note this could come with a Healing skill check to know what spells to cast, and also create the need for healing skill to be non class specific.
The reason for this is
Wizards work on INT and knowledge so it would be necessary and important in creation of the healing spell to be very specific... Now a wild surge type helaing spell LOL.... but would you want to risk that.....
Wizards are directly responsible for the manipulation and control of their spell while the cleric is just channeling a higher power who does that

Yitzi

2012-11-04, 01:01 AM

If you really want to make necromancy not be evil, the following changes should be both necessary and sufficient:
1. Remove all [Evil] descriptors from undead-creating spells and other clearly necromantic spells. Spells which are more clearly evil than necromantic, such as Eyebite, should be moved to Conjuration or Evocation.
2. Change the alignment of all undead to either Neutral (for mindless undead) or Any (for intelligent undead) or As Base Creature (for undead templates). Necromancy deals with undead, so making undead not evil is closely associated with making necromancy not evil. Note that the alignment change will affect their behavior as well, and think about the consequences of non-evil liches and vampires...
3. Necromancy is also closely related to negative energy, so you'd better make it not evil to channel negative energy, and not good to channel positive energy. Any alignment cleric can do either. Negative energy might be destructive, and positive energy creative, but they're not evil and good respectively, they just are. As a result of this, you'll also want to remove the alignment descriptors of Consecrate and Desecrate, and remove the undead-related effects of Hallow and Unhallow.