Shattered Kingdoms

Necromancers are the worst class in the game right now. I would never be afraid of any necromancer coming at me. They are weak and offer almost nothing to a group. Lets think of some ways to improve them.

Animate Dead

This used to be a great spell. It is now entirely useless. A necromancer is better off with a store-bought pet than an animated undead. What if:

Skeletons - Should have second attack (mastered) and use every weapon
Zombies - Should be able to bash, but not be able to use any weapons or armor. HP should be increased (doubled?)

Actually, we could just get rid of the rest of them. But if we still want to keep them around, wights should not be plaguing people. That doesn't help. If the cursed it would be better. Either way, ALL animated undead should assist any undead in the room, whether or not they are in the same party. Otherwise, the necromancer has to "order all kill" and suffer order lag. This is a problem for a class that needs to do other things at the same time (like cast).

Control Undead

All controlled undead should log out with the necromancer. Some of them do right now, which is nice, but all of them should. Right now the blood wight and the enormous ice wight log out with a necromancer. This is a great change and one of the reasons control undead is great. It is taking control over another creature, so that creature should leave the realms with you. I think it is fine to have the undead respawn so that some other necromancer can control that same undead. Maybe make it so that you cannot have 2 of the same controlled undead so no one gets 2 or 3 sessperians or Lord Varlochs.

These are some minor changes, and they could use more than this but I'm just going to start it here. Necromancers used to be feared but they are now just completely terrible. Utterly irredeemable. I think these changes would help the necromancer out a lot without making them too overpowered (like they probably were when Wraiths could berserk, fury, bash and use weapons).

These 2 comments make me wonder if you're playing a necromancer or just theorizing? If you're playing a necro, I advise you to animate some skeletons from higher level corpses, re-test them, and reconsider the suggestion. I'm curious where you think zombie HP currently stands and where you think it should be- ie, a comparable measure? If you're looking for more durable zombies, have you tested how/if the use of armor can boost their durability?


I think they already all should log out with the necromancer, though if any do not, it may be the unique types like Varloch. There might be another flag used sparingly on some undead that may block certain ones, but I don't remember that being the case.

You're right that they don't necessarily offer a lot to a PC group, beyond enchant weapon/ scribe/ shield/ staves/ wands, but "utterly irredeemable" might be hyperbole.
I don't really think of necromancers as necessarily being the most suited to highly social behavior; by nature they're kind of creepy- almost the definition of antisocial.

This is a MUD.. is your response really that he shouldn't be grouping up with other players because necros are creepy? Disappointed in the response overall. Necromancers got wimped way too hard and rather than admit the mistake you're placing blame back on players for not "doing it right".

Makes more sense to just stop playing the class altogether until y'all realize how bad they are and fix it, like you tried to do with swashies. As of right now anyone looking to play a necro should instead play a delf-warlock and actually have fun.

You won't spur changes by speaking that way.

We need to ask what a necromancer brings to the table in group play and what they are capable of in solo play.

What can reasonably be added with existing code to make them better?

I'm also disappointed in Yed's responses. It's fine to disagree with me, but dismissing me like that is rude.

I don't currently play a necromancer. I played one and realized that they are bad. Controlled are weak compared to the good charmies used by a sorcerer. Animated undead are not any better than a store bought pet (zombies aren't any more tough, can't rescue, can't bash, skeletons don't do damage better than a store bought pet)

Necros also have the wrong type of enchant. They need enchant armor, or at least enchant item.

FoD doesn't cause impairment, is a long cast and is easy to resist.

No one has any reason to fear them.

To turn your comment back around on you, do you currently play a necro? Prove me wrong.

Wights should get curse instead of plague? I'll make it happen. Dulrik, chop chop get to it.

It's true that necros aren't designed to be group characters, so if they are weak, changes should be based around things that directly make them more effective on their own, and not things that might make them more popular with others.

I'd say jreid hit the nail on the head, work under the idea of what they are supposed to be(more solo oriented characters), and then work from there to decide if they have what they need to fill that role, and if they don't what would they need to fix it.

Also, it doesn't hurt to look at the problems/solutions being described and actually decide if they are the actual problem or a solution to that. Curse can be cast between rounds I believe these days, so while some undead casting curse could be useful, plague is probably better as a NPC proc because it then operates outside of that cast time. A debuff to con and dex isn't awful for someone or something you're trying to kill either. Additionally, necromancers and their minions don't actually have to worry about plague at all, so if plague isn't working well in a situation where you're removing the cast time, and making it one-sided, that may be something to be addressed with the ability, not the undead making special use of it.

For anyone that played a necro recently, more detail on the animated undead usage would be swell. NPCs used to create, number used, impressions, etc. Also, for anyone making a comparison between an undead control and a sorc charm, I'd be curious to know what NPCs you're comparing between, and in what situation.

Chill out, kid. I didn't say any of the things you are attributing to me. Try to pick a fight with somebody else, I'm not interested.


Settle down, I didn't dismiss you. I didn't even disagree with your overall statement about necros. I wasn't rude to you.

You called out some specific points to support your claim about why necros are supposedly "completely terrible. Utterly irredeemable." You seem to think skeletons don't have access to second attack or weapon skills. If you're not playing a necromancer, it would be difficult for you to test your theory; but maybe I was just offering a helpful suggestion of how you might test that theory.

You seem to think that zombies have no HP; by your descriptor, I just don't know where you believe zombie HP to currently sit, nor where you believe they should sit. Maybe you think their current max HP are substantially lower than their actual potential or maybe you think they should be doubled up beyond than their actual current max HP potential. Anywhere from the HP of a store-bought kitten to the HP of Radi Kenga? Do you think they now have the HP of a typical apprentice human sorc? Do you think they should have the HP of a typical GM human barbarian? I was just asking for an actual reference point, not for your blood.

I didn't say that necros have the "right" enchant. I simply mentioned that enchant weapon happens to be one of the few spells they have that can help a group. In fact, I actually agreed with you in your assertion that they aren't very helpful to a group.

I said nothing about FoD, I said nothing about whether anybody should fear them. You started a conversation, I attempted to participate in good faith. I don't play a current necromancer, but I do have direct knowledge to know that at least one of the statements in your complaint is just flat out wrong.

It seems that a certain grumpy smurf is the one trying to accuse me of "not doing [something] right" and it seems like you are the one choosing to dismiss me. I just thought this was an open conversation but I guess now I know better.

This is dismissive. It is exactly the opposite of what a constructive conversation looks like. And, then, when you go out of your way to claim that you aren't dismissing us, you are engaging in gaslighting. Please don't be toxic. The conversation is effectively eliminated when you choose toxicity over rational discourse.

I played a necro somewhat recently. Though I'm not entirely sure if my input would help, here's some thing I have noticed:

I needed to have a pair of sessprian ghouls to feel about as safe as a regular sorc would with a well geared charm. The reason I found this to be true is if I found a village that randomly attacked undead, then I needed the extra fire power. Or if the enemy group had even a single paladin in it, a quick cast spell could eliminate one instantly and the second one was needed to buy me time to at least resist a spell and flee or cast something to help out. Blood wights are decent charms, as is the frost wight, but compared to a sessprian they are more gear dependent as the ghouls were inately hasted and came with their specialized weapons.

The overall spell list is definitely not designed to be in a group of people, as groups of people need to be healed, and undead... don't really appreciate that kind of love and attention. You can kick them out of a group, but then have to deal with command lag to get them to jump in, or have to glance at each one to see if any need some fixing.

Energy drain is, in my opinion, a bit of a waste of time. It used to be brutal in PK back in the day with permanent XP drain, but with a lower player base I understand the need to not peel away XP that may be difficult to earn (I'm assuming). But the spell doesn't really do anything super useful. Vampiric touch can both damage and heal which is nice, but edrain's damage is pretty low. If successfully landing it provided some kind of buff, or even a debuff until your pulse can recover or something, then I might see it's use.

As a GM necro with max art, I remember getting into a couple of PK instances where I cast blindness on the same person a good ten times and nothing ever landed. So there's that kind of frustration too, though I think that might be more of enchanting / luck situation rather than a class thing.

I never really bothered with the animate dead spell. I used to summon the bodyguards just outside of Teron and animate them into wraiths, give them polearms, and their attacks would just as often as not bounce off of armor and such. Ghouls were probably the better summon, but only because of the spamming of fort saves for poisonous bites, but other than that I found them to be lackluster. The damage was "ok" but found the same problem with their attacks not being able to do much against readily available store bought armor.

Fear is a neat spell as it can really mess with an enemy formation and is probably the only real thing I think a necro can offer a PK group. Followed by a few rounds of spamming cause light.

I agree that Necro is, at least by concept and design, a solo class. But so is a sorceror by that same argument, but at least a sorceror has several spells that are useful to a group: Water breathing, haste, giant strength, invis, all the enchants, enlarge/shrink, color spray, etc.

Anywho, just my two cents.