Talk:Necromancer (4e Class)

Contents 1 Power source 2 NECROMANCER BUILD IDEAS 2.1 Background Considerations for the Necro-Powers 3 Rating 4 About description 5 Fast creation 6 Traits 7 I like this, but.... 8 Wikify

[edit] Power source

Power source should be "Shadow", not Arcane. Differentiate it from the wizard more, don't just have it be a wizard that shoots a bone spear.

shadow.. no, not shadow, it should be better something more like soul or life that way it could be better represented, to the power he owns (or will own) -dokuro-

I just read the part of additional power sources on the PH, and surely shadow would be the power source of necros in future books... Dokuro 10:18, 4 September 2008 (MDT)

[edit] NECROMANCER BUILD IDEAS

As i see it, there are 4 ways to become a Necromancer in 4e:

1.- A Warlock who makes a pact with a God (Orcus fits this category) or entity in order to gain power over the undead. I support this :)

2.- A Wizard that uses necromantic spells and rituals that would let him create and control undead minions. (to much power to one class)

3.- A Paragon Path for the Wizard, witch seems like the new natural way of d20's 4e to create different flavors in magic. (too simple)

OR...

4.- This stand alone Class!!! which i fully support now :)

[edit] Background Considerations for the Necro-Powers

The aspect of the Necromancers that make them what they are, (hated, evil, dark, emo or whatever you like) witch should be the rules for this build, is that they collect corpses to control them as a servants, any corps that will suit a task, that is the main idea behind the class, and this, in most cases/cultures, is wrong and/or disgusting, but it is the wrongest in the case of taking a corpse of the same race/culture/town taking even upon him to commit murder (good roll playing scenario) ie. to impersonate an important person and using him to his benefit, or to revive and evildoer so he can do the good in death that he didn't in life, this examples make the class very variable and it could be played in many ways.

The abilities bounded to this behavior are the rituals, because of time needed for the recollection and preparation of the minion. This fact makes this class more suited for a Wizard Paragon class, because of the great amounts of knowledge and study of the body's workings and the power over the energies of life in order to animate things, and how to maintain that without being a God; also this kind of knowledge allows them to control mind and muscle of the living, the creation of poisons and potions for the same purposes, so the work would be just a matter of adding spells, rituals and a few rules on the way to control the minions. SINCE I CHANGED MY MIND ABOUT THIS POINT I MADE CAN I TAKE IT OFF--Dokuro 08:22, 22 August 2008 (MDT)

In other order of ideas, both necromancer options (Wizard Paragon and Warlock) should exist, making each more special in their own way. Even a fight between them might be interesting... --Dokuro 07:14, 22 August 2008 (MDT)

I am actually in the early stages of working on a Death Pact tree for warlocks, but having a stand-alone necromancer class is not such a bad idea. My Death Pact was intended to represent a warlock who is granted offensive magics by something big and dead and scary, putting them very much in the "servant" category. A necromancer, to the best of my experience, actually controls the dead, rather than serving them. Having a coterie of undead minions is important, I agree, so getting the requisite rituals free should probably be a class feature. Consider that a necromancer could go for two build options. Let's call them the "exorcist necromancer" and the "horde necromancer". An exorcist necromancer would have powers focused on damaging things, with a fairly exclusive focus on damaging the dead. To make them viable, of course, you would probably have some other powers that make them able to deal damage to creatures based on origin. Their powers would mostly bulk them up, and they would probably fall under the Striker heading. Exorcists say "no" to undead hordes, and they're probably the more socially acceptable necromancers. The horde necromancer, however, should concentrate entirely on bulking up their undead legion. They would probably be Controllers, since Leaders help their party, and if you take the view that zombies aren't party members, they're weapons, then it's really a Controller class. They might have some daily or encounter powers that let them temporarily reanimate the corpses of their foes, or have their minions use enemies to repair themselves, or regain HP by sucking the residual life-energy out of corpses. Stuff like that. They probably get run out of town a lot. - Yamamoto Kesuke, 12:18 PM MDT, 8 August 2008

where is that class can i have a link?--Dokuro 09:18, 22 August 2008 (MDT)

Yes, i agree the necromancer is hated by gods and all because he raises undead, the living don't like that and the gods either, (except orcus) so to follow the books the warlock pact would be an Orcus contract, that would grant necrotic powers and in the end, with the help of some paragon paths, he will become an undead! (template) lol it would be really funny. This necro warlock would not mantain hordes of undead but he might use them on the fly, ghost that attack out of nowhere, shadows that spy, revive the minions of the enemies as skeletal or zombie minions that will last for the hole battle; it would be one great way of getting a necro, but there have to be this complete class too!; they could even meet in one way or hate each other, pure undead fun!.--Dokuro 07:14, 22 August 2008 (MDT)

[edit] Rating

Power - 2/5 I give this class a 2 out of 5 because It's power concept is based off the sole idea of raising the dead in the name of the god of undeath. It needs to be more versatile, try the choice between the god of undeath or the goddess of death. Since necromancers in general deal with the dead, a nercomancer should be able to have the options between serving one of the two and gaining different powers based on their god. Such as raising the dead or sending the dead to their final rest.

Flavor - 2/5 I give this class a 2 out of 5 because same as power really. Nercomancers aren't simply zombie makers, It needs for versatility.

Helps to sign your posts, or have a registered account. Also, I don't see how this is only a zombie maker... Have you even looked at the powers? Also, apparently you haven't read anything about the Raven Queen. I don't see how sending the dead to their final rest makes works for a necromancer and so that's not what I'm making this.--Taritus 12:47, 16 August 2008 (MDT)

[edit] About description

since this build is for a stand alone class, we could rethink the hole "making a deal with Vecna" part of the description (you can include Orcus here to) so we can have that description open in a Necromancer Warlock Pact! --Dokuro 08:19, 22 August 2008 (MDT)

[edit] Fast creation

You could instead of making him waste his small amount of time creating an undead in a fight, you could make him use the corpse as a puppet which actions would consume the necromancer's minor action and for an additional puppet created will consume his move action and lastly his standard action in a round, giving him a nice power every combat that tops on 3 low level undead (i am making a list!).--Dokuro 08:30, 22 August 2008 (MDT)

[edit] Traits

• Is good that it is a controller, we need the explanation here.
• I would like to make a new power source kind instead of arcane, since it is a new class.
• I think the abilities are fine maybe change const oe wis for either dex or cha, i don't think necros are that wise if they are messing with all of this rotten corpses and the hate of so many gods, constitution is OK
• For the armor, we could add bones but that might be stupid... lol cloth, maybe add leather?
• The weapons... could be more like the warlock simple weapons, he is more fighter than a mere wizard.
• For the Implements, we should make up some new implements for a new class like skulls, runes, blood, chicken bones, who knows something that gives him a necro taste!
• As a bonus to defense will might not be the best choice, because in the description most of them end up crazy, or this bonus to will would be because they have to endure this becoming crazy thing... let's argue!.
• I can't tell you if the values for HP are a good choice, we could argue for a while here!
• Class Skills, arcana and religion great choices as fixed ones, you should read that there are extra 2 because you added 2 in advanced since every other class gets 4 (wiz & war & clr); for the other skills to choose from, bluff is nice, insight fine, thievery i think for a corpse stealer should have that, heal might be a class skill since you have to take care of bodies, intimidate might fit well. Again we could discus this!
• And as Class Features i like the ritual thing, i don't get well the tendrils and you have my thoughts on fast creations up there...

I am fully supporting this idea now so i might be a little annoying! :D--Dokuro 09:12, 22 August 2008 (MDT)

Having the Arcane power source lets him have his powers be spells, which is all they are. Wisdom is a good choice because they need to be wise and know a lot about the past and past advancements in necromancy, so that's what I'm keeping. There isn't a bone armor type, and it's incredibly silly to make one for a single class. The ideas for implements are incredibly silly. Implements are things to channel your power through, and chicken bones definitely don't work too well for that. They weak physically, but they have strong minds. They may be insane, but they have the ability to stop others from entering their minds. How is having Arcana and Religion as class skills "messy"? They have 2 less options for trained skills, but they automatically get 2 skills, so I don't understand your 'every other class gets 4' thing... Necromancers get 5, so what's wrong with that? I don't have the build options even started, so commenting on them is senseless. The tendrils are to provide a minor defense to them as they have little HP.--Taritus 09:47, 22 August 2008 (MDT)

Arcane is good! you are right about the spells. My implements are silly, but they must be different from the other classes. We could make the skill selection between Arcana and Religion on level one (like the ranger) and then let the player choose the other 3, that could be a nice excuse for the builds!.Dokuro 07:23, 25 August 2008 (MDT)

[edit] I like this, but....

Excuse me for the intrusion, but I kinda felt the need to point a few things out. First, necromancers were historically associated with contacting the spirits of the dead. In Dungeons and Dragons, this tends to translate better into divine casters (a la Spirit Shaman) than arcane. In light of this, might I suggest that this class's power source be changed to divine? I would like to see a controller using a power source other than arcane.

Then there's the question of how necromancers worked in past editions. I suggest that one build is geared toward raising the dead (perhaps including a class feature like the ranger's Beast Mastery feature in Martial Power?), while the other is geared more toward killing things. In this event, I would also suggest that the first (which used to be the Cleric Necromancer's role) favor powers based on Wisdom, while the second (which used to represent the Wizard Necromancer) favors Intelligence or Charisma.

Finally, I would like to suggest (especially if you insist on keeping this as an arcane class) that one of the at-wills be treated as a basic attack. I suggest Rotting Touch for this, if only because it reminds me of the Dread Necromancer's Charnel Touch ability.

Other than that (and very possibly the restriction on deities, I think necromancers could get away with solipsism), I think the class is great. Much more clear-cut than the necromancers of yesteryear (though that never stopped me from playing one every chance I got). --Ddragon Necrophades 01:15, 22 January 2009 (MST)

[edit] Wikify

Discussion moved from User talk:Green Dragon/Archive 18#4e Class Necromancer. --Green Dragon 13:38, 1 January 2011 (MST)

Thank you for taking a look at my "necromancer" 4e base class. I developed it in conjunction with a colleague with whom I am playing a long-form campaign.

I seek advice in improving the necromancer with two primary goals: I wish to, over time, produce a class whose quality ranks it among the best 4e homebrew classes on the site; and I want to make sure that the necromancer conforms in extremis to the D&D Wiki formatting standards.

As it stands now, I do not possess the proper knowledge to achieve those goals. So, to solve a few formatting problems immediately, I wish to clarify:

• Which powers listed on the necromancer main page need to be moved to another page? If any, which other page?
• Which necromancer powers listed elsewhere need to be moved to another page? Which other page?
• Which creatures are listed on the necromancer main page that need to be moved to another page? If any, which other page?
• Given that worship of a specific deity confers a class feature power or bonus upon the necromancer character, why does the list of deities and their related class feature benefit need to be moved up to the "Overview: Religion" section?
• Given that you can see clearly which information is currently in tables which use HTML instead of the wiki syntax ("Phantom level/damage", "Phantom potential actions", "deity/benefit"; I assume that the "level/maximum Phantoms" table is satisfactory already), how can I change those tables into wiki syntax within those power and creature templates? The reason I used an unorthodox "HTML splice" technique to insert those tables is because I could not use the wiki syntax to add the tables within the templates (as it was apparently beyond my coding abilities).
• How can I cause the "Contents" list to show separate sections within the Necromancer Class Features section? I believe that that section has become long enough to merit separate sections within the Contents.

I think that with your help and the assistance of the other users we should be able to clear up these formatting issues relatively quickly. --Ofidian 21:20, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

• The powers look fine, as they follow the preload being on Necromancer Powers (4e Power List).
• The creatures which were on this page needed to be moved to their own page (e.g. "Phantom (4e Creature)"). Now that it cannot be found on the page, do you know why it was removed?
• The deity relations was removed (do you know why?), however you are right. It worked as a class feature, as it gave benefits. Sorry about that.
• No longer does this have any unorthodox formatting. If it does, I would be more then willing to change it into wiki syntax and show you how. If you add something which you are not sure of how to format with wiki syntax let me know.
• If you add back the creature (see also "History") I could show you how.

Hope this helps. --Green Dragon 13:38, 1 January 2011 (MST)