Shattered Kingdoms

I've seen a few people say this, and I would tend to disagree. Even with the way most lighties are now, some are content enough to leave you alone, and a fair number of greybies will not bother you unless you make trouble with the cabal. I'd recon you have a little more than half, at worst. Play it smart, and you could have much less...

sleeper

there was some hammer barb in aludra that took on necromancers wearing no armor, so that he could carry a shitload of boulders. i think he had three successful kills one day, before deleting. nadano? something like that.

a few thoughts:

1) taunt should not be a part of any balance considerations in regards to concentration. taunt can be modded out of very easily.

2) i don't see any reason why necromancers need more than 8 animates + controls. cap animate dead at 8, and the problem is solved.

3) i see no issue with tripling the time for animates to last.

4) animates don't need better weapons. for their purpose, steel does fine, IMHO. if you want something better, it's out there, but you've gotta work for it.

4) i'd like to see a greater variety of available controls.

"Better" I was asking for stone/jade/whatever.

Wands alone would do 95% of the balancing.

Particularly one wand.

Or just give have something like when you come out of etherealform your body is too weak to go right back in and you have to wait a minute to do it again.

When is there going to be a craft wand/stave skill made?

Today, I think.

Anyway, the removal of the mottled rod would be a VERY bad idea. So you spend 40 minutes preparing right? Meet Priest A* who has a crossbow. Priest A stands a room away and shoots you to the point where you have no choice but to retreat, some places this is great and all they won. You like necros assaulting cities or doing anything fun? Never again will this happen as any one person will be able to stop it since by the time the necro deals with guards in any one particular room the person will have moved to another room full of guards and continue shooting.

Basically what removing eth wands would do is...make necromancer the weakest class in the game in one fell swoop.

*Replace priest A with any class besides necro and barb.

Ethereal scribed scrolls?:/

Possible, but requires even MORE preparation. The class takes more than enough as it is. Also requires FRIENDLY high level sorcerers which...are not always (read almost never) available.