Shattered Kingdoms

Are you suggesting that necromancers would be too weak if their controls capped out at 35th level? Would that really make them inferior to other classes? I don't think so.

No-brainer indeed. (facepalm)

As soon as I read this, I was sure the next 10 posts were going to involve people making fun of StylesP's faulty math skills. And yet... nothing!

I'd like to think this is a sign of the increasing maturity of our forum community, yet I'm pretty sure it's just another sign of our poor educational system.

PS. 8x4=32

+1

=33?

Excluding all chars in a certain cabal, can anyone point to a battle where any single person actually was able to kill an ethereal necro? I doubt it.

If all risk is taken away by going ethereal that is a problem.

Not all risk is taken away, there a rogues,bards and priest who can use scrolls, sorcs who can go ethereal/dispel, shaman who can dispel, warlocks who can use wands to go ethereal and such. All situations which rarely happens but can happen, all those classes have a same and equal oppurtunity to be ethereal with the necro, but it still requires group coordination, making a necro a raid boss, for the most part, if they go ethereal.

Those things are all great, if o all bas was not the end all be all of pvp.

lulz

The only thing that really needs changed about necromancers is that the inner guardians of cabals should have a "holy" breath to attack them with instead of poison gas which they're resistant to. It'll at least shut down a very glaring CRS hole that necromancers can exploit to solo inner guardians.

You could probably take animate dead away from necromancers entirely, and they would still be on par with the other classes. They have a great spellset, and a couple controls do great damage.

But why would anyone resort to dark magics that would inevitably warp their minds and drive them insane, when those magics don't at least make them a powerful SoB? From an IC perspective, nobody would ever want to be a necromancer.

Necromancers are supposed to be scary, especially to masses of defenseless newbs. This is by design and is not going to change. When I played a lightie, and darkies were attacking, I could typically count on maybe 3 characters who would show up to help me, if they were online. But when a necromancer was attacking, every fountain-rping lightie would man up and fight. Necromancers can't even RP with most of the pbase without getting ambushed. And then there are the weaknesses. Low hp that lets them get torn apart from arrows, which would be really devastating if a change to etherealform were made. They have to deal with BoG. While powerful, a slip-up can quickly result in death for this class. From an OOC perspective, nobody would ever play a necro if they were merely on par with other classes.

Probably so, but I am proposing a less radical change because I don't want to test that theory in live play. I don't think the pendulum needs to swing so far the other way in the process of balancing classes. If the animate change isn't sufficient, more alterations can always happen later.


You can look at RL for about 20 billion examples of people behaving irrationally on a daily basis. Maybe someone wants to be a necromancer because it just feels good to use dark magic. Maybe he likes the smell of rotting corpses. Maybe he only likes to talk to zombies. Who knows? Players can come up with plenty of IC reasons to be twisted and crazy. There are so many RP opportunities there, and for non-twinks that's the most fun part about playing a necromancer.



I have already been over this. Yes, they have weaknesses, but no, they don't need to be wildly more powerful than other classes to compensate for those weaknesses; things like death shroud and the tactical advantages of the diabolic alignment are enough to compensate for that. Besides, if your first hypothesis is true, that necromancers would still be on par with other classes if you took animate dead away from them altogether, then the change I'm proposing should still leave them more powerful than other classes, so you shouldn't have a problem with it. You might be right about that, too. That said, I obviously disagree that they need to be more powerful than other classes for people to want to play them. This is what makes twinks want to play them, but normal players would still want to play them for reasons such as RP and variety - some of the things that make SK fun. And they would still be scary. Nobody likes to be the victim of energy drain or "order all bash." Nobody enjoys getting rolled over by shadowy wights. The necromancer doesn't need 10 GM barbarians to be scary.