Shattered Kingdoms

The current undead limit is not based on mana (even if your not in a cabal), it is based upon time, when the animates drop.

It is a difficult class.

It does take alot of preperation to get 100 wights.

It is entirely too powerfull when you do have 100 wights though.

It would still be a VERY viable class with a limit of seven animates, and it would take FAR less preperation.

For the complete wimp, bring back



from news read 18

If undead get capped at that number, two things would have to happen so that the class didn't change into a casting support class instead of the "self-sufficient" class it is now. The first of these things is the removal of undead weaknesses. This would, no doubt, result in a lot more whining about undead being over-powered, regardless of the fact that there's some sort of cap on their number. The second of these things is that the concentration time on holy word must be increased to more along the lines of petrification or finger of death. This would, no doubt, result in a lot more people whining that, even though there is a cap on the sheer number, there aren't enough ways to handle undead.

All in all, capping the undead is a foolish idea. The amount of time that is required to animate a huge army is more than enough to balance the power of it, especially since any "locate object" spell can betray the preparation.

What you mean by this is, that there is not a single thing a necromancer cannot do by himself...

Making animated undead unable to wield weapons would make sense and make them balanced.

Konge, you're wrong. There's *lots* they can't do on their own.

Yes, like singing songs of sleep - wait, that might just be the one thing they can't...

They are, without a doubt, the single most resourceful class in the game. They have access to most classes through control undead and all three devices. This isn't unprecedented, -but- in addition to this, they trumph the sorcs by being capable of raising NPCs which has absolutely no problem with mob-slaying (except for a few instances where there's taken decisive measures against necromancers in particular)...

They could easily do this, even after the wimp I propose. That animates would be unable to wield weapons would take some power away from them, particularly on the pvp/cabal wars field... It would actually require that they chew through the pet first - GASP!

As it is, the necromancer spell arsenal is extremely underused, simply because ordering around your army is a much better use of your time. Something should be done, not only to reduce the ridiculous one-man power of the necromancer, but to encourage the actual use of their spellset...

So, I have this necro alt I occasionally trot out, mostly when I've been drinking. He's master level, wears no clothes (maybe some pants if he can find some), he doesn't have much in the way of hps, and he tosses together armies from whatever corpses he can find or make in the first 15 minutes after he logs in. If every necro played this way, no one would be complaining.

By way of contrast, you also have folks like Gussow, who collect wraiths, presumably creating them with decent HPs, haste their undead, gs their undead, equip them with durable and painful weapons, use scrolls, use staves, embalm piles of corpses for quick armies, know every GM-level NPC in the game by name, and so on. These folks are a [REDACTED] to deal with. It takes dedication and time to play a necro in this uber mode.

Should the folks with time and dedication be rewarded with vast armies of (paralyzing) undead? Dunno.

What I do know is that there was a time when every uber necro ran around with controls (eg: Jadow, Ralhn). Ghouls, Varloch, vampires, and so on. Blood wights for the poor man. Cancellation was fun in those days, if you got lucky. No one animated corpses. That spell didn't work worth a damn.

Then they fixed animated corpse. I love the idea, and they did a pretty good job. But now you hardly ever see controls, it seems like. Maybe a mephit, but not a control.

So, my rambling point is this. If something is tweaked with animate corpse, it'd be great to see control undead become more popular again. Strike a balance. Maybe there's times when a necro wants an army of shambling undead, none very powerful, but powerful in aggregate. Maybe there's other times when he wants some nasty ghoul swinging sickles and poisoning everything in sight. In other words, if animate armies are limited in some way, if they have a viable control spell to fall back on, maybe they won't care as much?

I'm guessing that animates are more wildly popular now because they take no concentration to maintain, and, properly done, they're pretty strong. Whereas I remember control being pretty taxing -- of course that might just be my uninspired alt's perspective.

Peace,
Bux

Necromancers have many weaknesses probably the most of all the classes they need an army of undead because usually an army of light aura people are gunning for them. They are also not liked, hunted with many valid and not so valid reasons. They are killed on site in some cities and people will get pardons for it. Hell sometimes they will get a resurrection from a priest and will be killed by the priest just because they did not ask as many questions as they should have. And one of the biggest weaknesses is that most of their spells take long time to cast.

Spells that can eat undead are many while spells that eat a charm are few. When I say eat I mean cast it and they are dead or very close to it. If the undead were to be given limits and could not wield weapons or armor they would have to be given a seriously boost. Take the elementals; an earth element can kill a large group of naked weaponless equal level undead. A GM fire elemental will destroy a GM undead that is wearing nothing one on one, probably even one on six as well.

Elementals are weak to negative energy. FoD. Dont overloook the other spells of the necros arsenal to even the playing field. Also dispelling the elemental.

yeah, a few fod scrolls will kind of wipe an elemental off the map. Besides, while their spells may take long to cast, necromancers can own PCs pretty well, even without armies. I mean, fear's a mind spell, which giants are weak to, so giant barbs are pretty easy to dispose of, and then elves will die to one or two fods, even without the critical hit. Of course, you've got to be really, really damned fast, because said giant barb will wade through one wraith every two or three rounds of fighting, even more if he's got friends. Mercs can do way too much damage vs. necros, too. Fear? He'll run away and shoot you with his nice new longbow. Fod? Fort save. Uber weapons and armor? If his aren't as good as yours, then they will be soon, just after he finishes killing everything you have.

That said, embalming 50+ giant-size wraith corpses and fitting them out with steel and maybe the iron rods in krychire would not be an easy thing to fight. You want to know why animates are out of style? One well-armed-and-armored animate isn't half as good as thirty crappy-armed-and-armored wraiths with reach. Make animates decent meat shields, and you'll see a lot more of them.