Necromancy tree (rough idea)

[edge2054]

Had a rough idea for a Necro tree last night.

Summon Skeleton Ally - Summons a skeleton ally (summon with no duration attached). Only one ally can be active at a time (but see below). Additional talent points increase stats. At tl 1 you get a degenerated skeleton warrior, at tl 3 a normal skeleton warrior, tl 5 an armoured warrior.

Corpse Light - Increases physical damage of all undead in a radius for X turns and grants the caster X infravision.

???

Army of the Dead - % chance humanoids you kill will rise as undead minions when you kill them. Minions remain for X turns and their type is determined by the enemy type killed (or a random type if this is to much). (archers give archers, casters give casters, etc.) Additionally at tl 3 it increases the number of skeleton allies you may have by 1, at tl 5 by 1 more (for three total).

[Goblinz]

Cool!
Tome definitely need player necromancers.

For your Third tier talent I think a ability to position your minions around might be useful.

Also I doubt that necromancy would be contained with in a single tree so having a tree devoted to each undead would be cool (Skeleton,Ghoul, Vampire,?Shade/shadow)

[gruevy]

Crawl has the best idea I've seen so far. You can raise everything you kill, but only on any given level. They don't follow you up and down stairs.

[Grey]

Another idea would be Turn Undead - by force of will enslave enemy undead to your command.

[marvalis]

Another idea would be Turn Undead - by force of will enslave enemy undead to your command.

Sounds a lot like verata's aura: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Verata%27s_Aura
Here is a full list of all guild wars necromancer skills (for inspiration perhaps?)

In ADOM, the necromancer gets frost bolt, uses a corse to raise undead in return for mana (but it also trains mana or however it worked). At lvl 50 they could return from the dead if toughness > 10 but they loose half toughness.
Some info about ADOM necromancer slaves here: http://www.adomgb.info/adomgb-0-11.html

More info about the necromancer class powers here: http://lonkero.eu/igb/adomgb-0-1.html#0142
This one is nice:

Shadow Touch: transfer HP when hitting bare-handed

More skill inspiration: gw2 necromancer video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiPuw8s-DZU

enjoy

[Nevuk]

There are pretty much two styles of necromancers in games like this. They're usually just mages who study life and death energies. I have a kind of lengthy kind of them envisioned.

One is a pseudo-summoner, the other a dot/nuker. Regardless they have limited utility spells. Tome could probably benefit from a pseudo-summoner class but corruptors, doomed, and cursed seem to fulfill the other style pretty well.

How about making them sort of negative anorithils? They have life energy and death energy bars. Life energy replenishes from resting, death energy from a passive starting skill that grants it upon killing creatures. Their auras are greedy due to having previously mixed with death magic. Capacity for both increases with willpower, and most of their spells are based on this as well (willpower is very heavily used in tome). Souls are addictive. Higher death energy causes death spells to be considerably strengthened, but at max value causes damage of 50% of current hp and drops to half (if you wanted to be really hardcore you could make it death instead). Lower life energy could have an effect, but it would only be negative and the death energy drawback is already enough.

There is a passive talent that lets them filter death energy back out if they sustain it. They do also have a converting active talent. These could both be put at level 4 in some tree, but I think it would be less of a headache for them to just know them.

There would probably be two trees for both life and death. A mixed magic tree would require both. Life would include healing (Self, Other), life draining, mind domination, steal (steal control of targeted undead).
If you want another tree, a few odder abilities to be in light : Maybe an instant kill-spell for non-elite, non-boss, non-unique mobs could exist on a length cd (50 or so) and creating a massive amount of death energy while draining same amount of negative. Could be a deepen wounds, working in a similar way to echoes from the past (dealing 40-60%ish damage already dealt to mob and something like 30-50% of that to bosses). A passive allowing heal to target and damage enemy undead. Any life spell used to cause damage inflicts a massive amount of death energy. 10-15. (I currently see something like starting at 30/30 capacities, gaining 1-2 per point of willpower).

Mixed skills are where summoning undead creatures come from, as it requires a small piece of both the creator's life force, some life energy to bind a spirit to it, and some death energy. As for how long they last, that would be subject to balance really. The crawl method sounds ok. But I see nothing wrong with making them permanent but setting a limit - and also making them squishy enough so this never really matters.

An additional neutral tree with auras could include things that buff their minions with increased attack, increased damage, higher crit chance and apr, hp and armor, etc. (Each one as a passive or low cost sustain. Attempts to keep summons viable late game).

Could summon skelly warriors, armoured warriors, strange undead (ghast, wight, etc.), vampire (minus summoning skills).

For death magic harm (heals undead, deals damage to all others. weakish, low cd, (3 cost)), death bolt (stronger version of harm. Beams at level 5. Higher cd, higher cost(5)). Death expulsion (Line of sight harm effect. Long cd, damage intbetween harm and bolt (10)). Netherstorm (medium cost-sustain. (10) Drains .5/turn. Casts harm automatically on a random target every turn. Higher levels increase level of harm cast).

A passives tree could exist to allow for one to attempt to ignore summons - The first in tree is a low cost sustain that reduces all of harm's healing by 25/50/75/100% but increasing damage by the same amount (i mean this in the sense that if it does 50 dmg/50 heal it goes to 32.5/67.5, etc.). Then a spell crit chance and damage increase, a spell power increase (both of these are effects added to the sustain at the top level of the tree), and a master of death skill that reverses the manner in which life and death energy function and grants an additional life... as they've basically become a lich by using it. (Attempting to make this as appealing as the minion route. Don't really know if death master even can be programmed in tome?). Also causes harm's heal effect to be targetable on the self, and allows the neutral auras for minions to affect the self at level 5.

This concept is kind of strange and may be kind of hard to balance, but I think it would be something fun to kick around a bit. I picked the summons with the least amount of possible damage to the player (archers / mages shooting you in the back would get pretty old), think that making them some sort of permanent is probably necessary but with a cap based on whatever their secondary stat is (probably cunning or magic). With the right numbers in the auras I think it would be possible to keep using the minions the entirety of the game, and they have a totally different flavor than a summoner or any of the other death mages.

[Grey]

Y'know we could really do with having necros in ToME4 so that Burb Lulls can write a "DitL of Grim the Necromancer" :D

[Burb Lulls]

I have it on good authority that that's the one reason why there isn't a necromancer class

I had a quick idea for a single necromancer tree, focusing more on the necromancer than his/her minions:

Necromancy / Death [Class]

1. Horrify (Activated)
Randomly reduces either the resistances, saves, armour or defence of a single target.
At level 3 it reduces two of them.
At level 5 it reduces three.

2. Doom (Activated)
Permanently causes all healing to become ineffective on one target, but requires the target's HP to be below a certain amount - roughly 10% HP for one point spent up to 30% for five points spent?
At level 5, it also activates the cooldowns for all the target's healing skills/infusions, regardless of health remaining.

3. Blurred Mortality (Passive)
Similar to the "Health" talent, this talent changes the point at which you die from 0 HP to a number below it, like -50 HP, growing larger (or is that smaller?) with each point spent. The drawback?
You can't SEE your health when it goes below zero...

4. Lichform (Passive)
The necromancer's party trick, the cheat death ability! This should probably be more involved - returning your necromancer back to their "lair" in their undead state once you're killed, having to complete a quest first to prepare for it, etc. - but for this skill simply investing one point would allow you to cheat death once (it is the necromancer's speciality, after all), further points would effect HOW you're resurrected. Say...

1 point: -0.2 Life Regen, -5 All Stats, -10% All Resistances
2 points: -0.1 Life Regen, -3 All Stats, -5% All Resistances
3 points: No change
4 points: +2 All Stats, +10 Spellpower
5 points: +4 All Stats, +20 Spellpower
Naturally, said necromancer would also become undead, and gain the myriad resistances and infusion denials that entails.

Possible unlocks:

• * Not including the Eidolon plane, resurrect twice in a game? (BoL & RoD)
  * Find all the "how to be a necromancer" lore with a single character?
  * Defeat the Master with an undead character? Both undead characters?

[edge2054]

I like Burb's post but I wanted to mention something about fear effects like horrify.

I believe the path-finding is equipped to handle fleeing mobs so maybe a more interesting Horrify would be a nova, cone, or single target attack that became a nova or cone that caused all creatures near you to actually flee. Would be a powerful defensive option for a ranged class.

[Grey]

Possible unlocks:

• * Not including the Eidolon plane, resurrect twice in a game? (BoL & RoD)
  * Find all the "how to be a necromancer" lore with a single character?
  * Defeat the Master with an undead character? Both undead characters?

Or just get an undead to level 50, or some other simple milestone.

I like the ideas, especially lichform (I'd been thinking of something similar myself - every necro needs a way to cheat death).