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Author Topic: Necromancy feats worth?  (Read 8839 times)

Sinful Mystic

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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #25 on: March 21, 2018, 05:17:49 PM »
I will bring up the question of summon durations at the next DEV meeting. That is Sunday. I will present all the facts you bring me, for or against, objectively. PM me your arguments.

I would also suggest a look at the summons that comes with the Death domain . It's totally useless. It's a very weak summons to begin with and the duration means investing in buffing it is just not an option.
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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #26 on: March 21, 2018, 05:42:12 PM »
Another balancing factor you have to consider about undead summons is that they are so repulsive to the majority of people, and quite simply having word get around that you use them at all can have serious rp repercussions for your character.  I believe that alone should warrant them having a much longer duration than normal summons.

The reward should be worth the risk to the point that it would be tempting, since necromancy is supposed to be a slippery slope to power.
« Last Edit: March 21, 2018, 05:45:47 PM by Dud_Goose »
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NWN_lovableweremink

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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #27 on: March 21, 2018, 05:58:31 PM »
This may be too detailed for some, and may give some spoilers,  but here goes:
Of all the summon spell type creatures available, all but 1 have short summon times.
The one that does have a decent time, both for adventure and RP is the Selgarns Persistent Blade (SPB) That lasts 1 hour+1 turn per 2 levels.
All the spells can be extended to double lasting time via the extend spell feat. Most casters tend to either take this feat, or use the available gear that grant it.
Some class abilities that summon something- the Cleric Death Domain for instance gives a very short summon when compared to the spells of the same level- the Shadow summoned duration does not change with levels. The shadow lasts for 1 RL minute- with no feat to extend it.

Wizard and Sorcerer Familiars are completely imbalanced to each other- the most powerful being the imps and mephits which have regeneration, in addition to fire, ice, or poison bite damage- the weakest familiars being the cat and bat. In terms of RP it doesn't really mater as the familiar lasts till dismissed, or killed.

Druid and Ranger animal companions are like the familiars, except not one of the choices regenerates as the imps/mephits do.

With SPB, one can solo most of the low level dungeons. By buffing the SPB, with Cats, Ghostly Visage, Shield, Mage Armor, Magic Weapon, and even Haste, and Stone skin, that blade will take out undead up to the dry liches in Har' Akir. It can certainly handle the Knights and Hecuva priests that sometimes appear in the morning lord crypts, and other locations.

With the characters Isi and Rose, we tested the Assassin Imp familiar at 17th level,  FvP against Rose (cleric) at 18th. Fully Wizard buffed against fully buffed+ enchanted gear- the imp won every time, in fact the imp never went under 1/2 hit points, and only got that low due to Rose's harm spell.

As a arcane caster with a imp, or mephit, it is possible to solo most of the server, provided that you can make sure to UN-summon it if need be to avoid familiar death.

To balance it out, especially for the sake of RP, I suggest this, Spell summons duration be changed to 1 hour plus 1 hour per 5 levels. (Our in game hour is 6 minutes?) yes this means summons will last significantly longer. Low levels will get a decent summon time of 1 hour. Level 20, will get a 5 hour summon- and probably never use it for other than RP.
Death domain Shadow summon duration to 1 hour plus 1 hour per 4 levels.
** please note that there is no adjustment of the creature stats, or CR just time.
Familiars should be completely adjusted to be more in line with PNP style.
SPB, should have the concentration check re-added that can cause it to UN-summon if the caster attacks, casts a spell, or pick something up.
All Summons, Animal Companions, and Familiars should probably have the AI added to to flee enemies that are more powerful. (this sort of system is available on the vault now.)
At caster level 10, All the summon spells should have a version of the chance for a mad/hostile summon to spawn in (as the summon7,8,9) do.

While it is possible to solo with the current settings, Most of the Main dungeons in the various domains are set up for a full party- so soloing is nearly impossible until a caster gets the Shape change spell. (another time for that one.)


RedwizardD

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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #28 on: March 21, 2018, 06:52:38 PM »
This may be too detailed for some, and may give some spoilers,  but here goes:
Of all the summon spell type creatures available, all but 1 have short summon times.
The one that does have a decent time, both for adventure and RP is the Selgarns Persistent Blade (SPB) That lasts 1 hour+1 turn per 2 levels.
All the spells can be extended to double lasting time via the extend spell feat. Most casters tend to either take this feat, or use the available gear that grant it.
Some class abilities that summon something- the Cleric Death Domain for instance gives a very short summon when compared to the spells of the same level- the Shadow summoned duration does not change with levels. The shadow lasts for 1 RL minute- with no feat to extend it.

Wizard and Sorcerer Familiars are completely imbalanced to each other- the most powerful being the imps and mephits which have regeneration, in addition to fire, ice, or poison bite damage- the weakest familiars being the cat and bat. In terms of RP it doesn't really mater as the familiar lasts till dismissed, or killed.

Druid and Ranger animal companions are like the familiars, except not one of the choices regenerates as the imps/mephits do.

With SPB, one can solo most of the low level dungeons. By buffing the SPB, with Cats, Ghostly Visage, Shield, Mage Armor, Magic Weapon, and even Haste, and Stone skin, that blade will take out undead up to the dry liches in Har' Akir. It can certainly handle the Knights and Hecuva priests that sometimes appear in the morning lord crypts, and other locations.

With the characters Isi and Rose, we tested the Assassin Imp familiar at 17th level,  FvP against Rose (cleric) at 18th. Fully Wizard buffed against fully buffed+ enchanted gear- the imp won every time, in fact the imp never went under 1/2 hit points, and only got that low due to Rose's harm spell.

As a arcane caster with a imp, or mephit, it is possible to solo most of the server, provided that you can make sure to UN-summon it if need be to avoid familiar death.

To balance it out, especially for the sake of RP, I suggest this, Spell summons duration be changed to 1 hour plus 1 hour per 5 levels. (Our in game hour is 6 minutes?) yes this means summons will last significantly longer. Low levels will get a decent summon time of 1 hour. Level 20, will get a 5 hour summon- and probably never use it for other than RP.
Death domain Shadow summon duration to 1 hour plus 1 hour per 4 levels.
** please note that there is no adjustment of the creature stats, or CR just time.
Familiars should be completely adjusted to be more in line with PNP style.
SPB, should have the concentration check re-added that can cause it to UN-summon if the caster attacks, casts a spell, or pick something up.
All Summons, Animal Companions, and Familiars should probably have the AI added to to flee enemies that are more powerful. (this sort of system is available on the vault now.)
At caster level 10, All the summon spells should have a version of the chance for a mad/hostile summon to spawn in (as the summon7,8,9) do.

While it is possible to solo with the current settings, Most of the Main dungeons in the various domains are set up for a full party- so soloing is nearly impossible until a caster gets the Shape change spell. (another time for that one.)

This is very well thought out but I wanted to add one detail that seems to be missing.

All familiars taken inside of ravenloft are technically dread familiars (which may have a template associated?). They behave much differently then typical familiars and may be the reason such unusual options are available. The problem with dread familiars? They are not as 'controlled' and become prone to taking their own initiative concerning 'what is best for their master'. In pnp, that would mean the player risks the familiar deciding to take (often lethal) revenge on someone who wronged the master (This can be anyone in any context, from a bitter rival, to your boss, to your children). Taking powerful assassin imp then would put anyone the creature perceives as being a 'bad influence' on what it wants you to do might become a target.

NWN_lovableweremink

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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #29 on: March 21, 2018, 07:09:48 PM »
Very apt Red! However, in terms of game play-RP what is left is simple mechanics. Those dread familiars only try and take over the PC- if the player chooses to play as such. Even having a imp for a familiar RP wise should lead to huge problems if one were to whip it out.. so to speak. What I have found to be the case, when playing a caster with a imp/Mephit Familiar, is that I do not let other PC see it, unless those PCs are friends of the character.

I guess it all comes down to play styles- Even with a imp familiar, I only summon it if I am soloing- in a group setting there is no need to whip it out. What I think is most confusing is this: The Summon Spells were nerfed on the time duration in order to promote Partying up with other characters, a mechanic way of enforcing RP,  they were too supportive of soloing as Bio-ware shipped them. Familiars were also shipped very beefed up- yet they were not nerfed, and even a more overpowered one was added.


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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #30 on: June 04, 2018, 06:06:16 PM »
Personally i think that palemasters should be something to fear. Finally arcane caster clases should be nerfed and palemaster empowered. May be using the ecl for classes,in this case a negative one, that could allow to the player break the barrier of the 20 levels and reach 20+ Allowed only by ecl. Players with 0 ecl should be not allowed to breal the 20th level.

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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #31 on: June 04, 2018, 06:28:54 PM »
 :think: what if the Necromancer has a buddy or two to back him up as well as his summon? Throw in some offensive spells and you could have a bad ass team. Being a Necromancer can be fun, and worth while to play in more than one type of scenario.

Arcibel

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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #32 on: June 04, 2018, 08:49:46 PM »
:think: what if the Necromancer has a buddy or two to back him up as well as his summon? Throw in some offensive spells and you could have a bad ass team. Being a Necromancer can be fun, and worth while to play in more than one type of scenario.

i think that a necro is the soul for this type of settings, like ravenloft. i think that should be accessible and powerful, weak necromancers has no sense.

Kendric98

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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #33 on: June 04, 2018, 09:42:32 PM »
The game is set up for cooperative play, fighter/wiz etc. If wizard summons lasted a long time they would be able to solo easier. 

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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #34 on: June 05, 2018, 02:27:53 PM »
How about if we give the feats of pale master to wizard/sorcerer? And a feat that could rise fort saves?

Ophelius

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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #35 on: June 05, 2018, 08:13:51 PM »
Why would a wizard/sorcerer need higher fort saves or access to Pale Master feats? I'm not quite following the reasoning behind nerfing/buffing specific classes based on the setting. (Not intending to come across as brash, I'm just curious about the argument being made here.)

tylernwn

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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #36 on: December 13, 2019, 09:17:19 AM »
I think this discussion is skewing towards arcane casters.
For divine casters it can be very worthwhile.

As a thought experiment:
Part 1: Undeath Domain
A cleric with undeath domain can cast animate dead as early as character level 3 (https://nwn2.fandom.com/wiki/Undeath_(domain)). These clerics can then use this spell to summon a skeletal chieftain (CR7) starting at character level 4. Furthermore if the character takes extend spell, they can start casting an extended version of animate dead starting at level 5 and using only their 3rd tier spell slots.

Being able to summon a CR7 monster (https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Skeleton_chieftain) back to back as early as level 4, and a variant of it as early as level 3, is pretty powerful. At this level your summon literally overshadows your own strength. Even with only a 1-3 minute duration, you can kill a lot of stuff with that summon. Taking this to its natural extreme, you can also fill all your spell slots with the animate dead spell by using your tier 2, tier 3, and tier 4 slots. So now you are easily looking at 3-9 casts of animate dead per rest. This is a lot of summons, and they cover a lot of time additively (10-30 minutes).

Necromancy feats are just the icing on the cake. With them you can add an additional; 1d6 cold damage per attack, +2 hp per hit dice, +3 AC, +2 attack bonus, and an on death AOE explosion for 1d8 + 1d8 per 2 hit dice negative energy damage (Skeletal Cheiftain: 4d8, Mummy: 9d8). Even unbuffed your summons are probably at least +2-3 CR higher than their base challenge rating. If you then buff them too, you can get a lot of mileage out of these summons.

As you level up, you obviously want to graduate to the higher level spells like Create Undead, Control Undead, and Create Greater Undead. These can be a little weak sometimes, but they are what you have to deal with at higher levels.

Part 2: Death Domain
If this strategy is not enough, there is one more way that you can streamline your necromancy career. You can also take death domain for the undead shadow summon (https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Death_domain). If you also take shadow affinity, this summon will keep up with your character in terms of strength until around character level 12; giving your character a second wind as skeleton chieftains start to fall behind.

Now it does takes a full commitment, but necromancy is pretty decent for a lot of the time and requires no equipment to use.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2019, 11:24:05 AM by tylernwn1991 »

Nemesis 24

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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #37 on: December 13, 2019, 09:49:39 AM »
Speaking of necromancy

How about it for this thread amirite?

LivingWasteland

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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #38 on: December 13, 2019, 10:50:07 AM »
Did we ever hear back about making summons even partially useful for more than just a distraction or nah?

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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #39 on: December 13, 2019, 11:45:08 AM »
No idea. Given the previous texts doubt much came up. Was interested to hear more but like most suggestion topics debates killed it faster than undeath to death.
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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #40 on: December 13, 2019, 04:36:08 PM »
Something tells me what likely it is not going to change anytime soon. Long duration and permanent undeads will directly greatly buff casters which already very strong on POTM.
Making longer duration for summonings = give tools to casters to complete dungeons solo. (Some dedicated characters even not casters can complete dungeon in solo anyway)
Funny and sad in server with full of evil and undeads, summoning evil outsiders and undeads is the most useless and not worth thing.
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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #41 on: December 14, 2019, 01:50:15 AM »
It's a circular conversation. The server doesn't like summons beyond RP reasons, they aren't very interested in their mechanical viability in the long-term. While the durations are troublesome, the durations just prevent you from wanting to ever buff the things. One way I could see to make it better would be to make the base summons more meaty and useful, especially for Necromancers who may perhaps have several summon spells up per slot, and run through them -- But find that it they just die too quickly.


A lot of these dungeons are expected to be run by a party of capable characters with a wizard or the like buffing them, when they're balanced. This means that using a summon in a dungeon is counterproductive in most cases, because you don't want to buff it due to the lackluster duration, and their stats are just too weak to really compete in a dungeon scenario whatsoever, or lend much aid other than obligatory spooky'ums.

What manages to rather quickly become confounding is that you can't quite .. Do skeletons and such in dungeons without turning yourself into a massive public target due to the nature of the player-character environment on the server. They're inconsequential in contributing to a party in the first place, are highly controversial, and you might as well not do it outside of niche roleplay in occult settings, which is more-or-less what summons in general are currently relegated to -- All but maybe, the 9th Circle Elementals and things like Summon Creature 8 and 9 in lower-level zones. Again, if you're in a party setting or even trying to do stuff solo, there's better ways to do it.

The only way I'd see to make it better would be to make them disposable things that you can focus into, and keep a number of spell slots redundantly filled with Summon Creature spells or Summon/Animate Dead spells.  So when they summon, they're just baseline competitive for a dungeon, but incapable of doing it solo. They could reasonably contribute to a party without simply being a waste of energy, and an alternative way for a second Wizard in a group to put out DPS to help the frontliners without using fireballs and magic missiles. You could probably buff them up from there, but those are other spell slots you'd be wasting on one of say, five summons you have ready. I can live with that summoner; I just want him to actually be viable as a discipline to follow, rather than a trivial trick you can do to make a summon use emotes or make a skellington speak as a conduit.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2019, 01:51:47 AM by BraveSirRobin »

Hallvor Hadiya

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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #42 on: December 14, 2019, 03:05:16 AM »
The argument against summons for solo reasons has always seemed to me an odd one, we're a Role-Play server and hamstringing a core feature of the setting to protect against a few wizards getting extra exp seems to me cutting off our noses to spite our face. When in fact its just untrue even if summons were given their proper due you'd maybe a small a rise in solo wizard content.

After all very rarely do we see duo dungeoning for appropriately lvled content, cause dungeons on the whole are made for parties not a wizard and his dog. Even with buffs there are better ways to solo, and that's cloud spells, grouping and invisibility. What you'd get out of the summon is trumped by a party.

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Iridni Ren

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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #43 on: December 14, 2019, 08:48:11 AM »
Does anyone wish to argue that caster classes are insufficiently strong?

Because making summons stronger makes caster classes stronger. Full stop.

Summons are available for those who want to use them to flavor their PCs or otherwise employ them for RP. If they aren't that powerful for combat, casting classes have plenty of other tools in their toolkit.

Cheer up: Mundanes think Antagonize needs buffing too :D

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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #44 on: December 14, 2019, 09:05:35 AM »
I'll never understand why people are so adamant against making core implemented features useful. If the staff don't want you to use something, they can remove it. If they add something, they should make it serve it's actual purpose.

" But this class is too powerful because it can do X."

Almost every class is too powerful because it can do X another class can't. D&D was never made for the classes to be balanced and equal to each other. Doesn't mean you have to neuter a feature almost completely.

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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #45 on: December 14, 2019, 09:45:11 AM »
If people want to use summons for RP reasons, they can. They last, what, 24 hours, outside of combat? That's plenty of time to do all the conjuration or necromancer RP you want with a summon. In combat though, they have a short duration, which is fine, because they shouldn't replace a party member.

BahamutZ3RO

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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #46 on: December 14, 2019, 12:04:22 PM »
Quote
Because making summons stronger makes caster classes stronger. Full stop.

I would just argue that it opens a different playstyle. A caster supporting players will always make for a stronger party than a caster buffing a skeleton chieftain.
: )




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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #47 on: December 14, 2019, 01:09:15 PM »
Quote
Because making summons stronger makes caster classes stronger. Full stop.

I would just argue that it opens a different playstyle. A caster supporting players will always make for a stronger party than a caster buffing a skeleton chieftain.

That a buff doesn't increase a class's strength in every situation is irrelevant to whether a buff is a buff.

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Crowl

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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #48 on: December 14, 2019, 05:54:51 PM »
Why not remove the feat then, if it's not really worth taking it in any circumstance?
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Iridni Ren

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Re: Necromancy feats worth?
« Reply #49 on: December 14, 2019, 05:56:48 PM »
Many feats are primarily for RP.

Giving players a choice "opens a different playstyle," whether or not that playstyle is mechanically optimal.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2019, 05:58:51 PM by Iridni Ren »

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