by Solar » Tue Oct 20, 2015 11:04 pm
I'm using necromancy on this thread to see if it can be made ALIVE:
TL;DR: Then don't.
I've been giving the necro class a go for a few days now. So far
I mostly like what I see. Yet, some thoughts have come to my mind,
like they are wont to do whenever I play anything.
I gather from the fact that bonecrafting 'caps' currently to 90 that
the class is still somewhat under construction, so I feel like taking
part in this thread. I am a Finn, so I don't come from a culture where
complimenting is an easy thing to do, but my thoughts/suggestions/questions/etc
below are not meant to be provocative or in any way hostile or critiquing
your good job so far, even though they might come across as such if they
point to things that could/should be further worked upon. You have
done good job with the game and I am not telling you how to do your job.
But please, if there's merit in any of these things, do feel free to make
use of them.
1) What exactly is a necromancer in Euotopia? A spellcaster who dabbles
in the realm of the dead? Or is it used here as a term for any practicioner
of dark arts, e.g. Warlock/Witch? Unholy spellcaster? Anti-priest? What are
the limits of their abilities? Are they limited to only death and
reanimation? Stuff pertaining to souls?
Acid wind is one of their spells, and that does not seem like it would fit
the traditional concept of a necromancer (like Super Avatar Bros (Ultima 8
(which does not exist to some?)), so does witchcraft belong to the
spellcasting schools of necromancers in this game?
What 'roles' does a necromancer play, or is meant to fill? Are they
mainly meant to be: defensive melee / offensive melee / offensive ranged /
buffer / debuffer / summoner / healer / utility / xyz?
When there is a good picture of what you see necromancer to be, you can use
it as a compass for developing the class further.
2) There are a few spells in the game that do not belong to the
necromancers, because the spellcaster classes that existed when
the spells were implemented did not include necro. Yet, thematically
if those few spells would be put into the game now, I feel like it
would be the necro who would get them. I am talking about vampyric
bite (XMP was it?), soul trap (IMJ) and kill (XC). Now, taking capstone spell from the
sorc and transferring it to the necro feels wrong, although thematically
it would be justifiable to some degree. Any thoughts? Or give XC to necros
and replace it with something equally good for sorcs?
3) When I was grinding bonecrafting skill up, there were a lot of
bone items in the list of craftable stuff. Most of them do not tell
me if they have anything special attached to them, like bone belt
giving more hpmax (which I learned from reading this thread)? Is
there an in-game way of knowing what the items do, such as bone
stiletto increasing magic damage by 10% or something? Like, in the
crafting menu? Bone charm, Bone skull key, skull dusts, bone quill,
cloudy beverage do have a short description of what they do. Also,
bonecrafting titles don't seem to exist. I got the prefix titles, like,
'master' but the entire title was 'master ', not 'master bonecrafter'.
4) Before priests were in the game, all the spellcasting skills were
under the mage class. This gave the spellcasting class a good amount
of spells to play with. Having played that class and its abundance of
spells, I feel like the current necromancer repertoire of spells
does seem rather... limited at the moment. Bonecrafting gives them
consumables that add to their list of abilities (blink, blink+invis),
which is nice.
5) Dex/Int preference. The manual instructs new players/characters to
get STR up to 60-100ish before raising any other stat, so that they'll
have some hpmax and carrying capacity. I like having options to choose
from, not everyone playing the same class should be ~just the same.
I see it as a good thing that there would be optional hexblade weapons
that are tied to different kind of stat ratio, like 75% str 25% dex.
It would enable a multiclass option where you use Ex Uus to compensate
for a lack of dex. I do see that there are ways to buff up necromancer's
hpmax through bone belt and ritual sacrifice etc to make up for low str
scores, but still...
6) I like this quest chain of learning the necromancer's spells. Where
you go from one npc to another. When I bled and crawled my way to the
5th level teacher, he said to me that I'm not skilled enough for him to
teach me further. That gave me mixed feelings. It made me feel like I
had wasted a lot of time to make this trip when I can barely beat the
ettin chieftains / troll priests into submission, on the other hand...
on the other hand, that reply is just awesome old school at work when
gaming wasn't for casuals! I quickly chained Dark ritual until I got
my necromancy to ~40, and then he gave me the spells. Triumph!
7) There has been some discussion in this thread regarding an undead
army and how powerful minions would be better for the game mechanics
by reducing lag and not blocking terrain. Would there be any merit in
a higher level necromancy summon spell which you give you stronger
minions, but each one of those would count as taking extra minion slots?
Probably not helping with the clogging issue, but it would be cool to
have a 2x2 sized minion...
8) A bone crown. Either craftable via bonecrafting, or acquired through
other means. Not sure if such a thing exists in the game already, but
it definitely should! And a bone scepter, to go with it, of course!
9) All these in-game messages when you advance in necromantic knowledge
hint that your character will become a lich eventually. This does seem
like a good capstone ability. Gain different strengths and different
weaknesses by changing from your race into an undead lich (unless you
were undead to begin with). But... I was under the impression that at
least Lich player avatar is ungettable/exclusive, so that probably will
not be part of it?
10) The game let me eat a corpse, it gave me a disease. Awesome!
11) This touches upon something I think Eclips mentioned earlier in this
thread. But just what is the nature of 'dark power'? Isn't it often about
giving its practicioners more power faster than any other path available,
but at a cost?. This is why, lore-wise, many practicioners of the dark arts
are drawn to the forbidden lore - the promise of easy and unlimited
power! How about making it possible for necromancers in the game to
voluntarily penalize aspects in their characters to gain more power
in some other area? Such as penalizing your movement speed by crippling
your legs to gain some kind of 'dark reward'? What other aspects are
there to mutilate? Vitality (hpmax)? Senses/Eyesight (vision)? Natural
hpregen? Object handling speed? Or does this feel more like a warlock thing?
And what would the benefits of this be? Just for flavor does not quite
cut it... The greater the sacrifice, the greater the reward. (Soon we'll
have a bunch of shriveled up husks being pushed around on wheelchairs, but
who are able to nuke the world if they so please, despite being unable to
move around on their own or even shop for groceries on their own...)
12) Just like magery and sorcery belong to the mage class, while piety and
divinity belongs to the priest. Will necromancers have another school of
magic to go with necromancy, or will they be like monks in that regard?
My personal opinion in this matter would be to consider witchcraft for the
second school, unless there are some plans for making a warlock class in
the future. I have a personal bias in this, because that would mean that
there would be at least 8 more spells for the class (1 for each level)
O:)
That's all for now. I tend to produce walls of text. Sorry.
The Will, the Power, and the Daring.
Chronicler of a Roleplaying Society
Characters: Solar (mage/priest), Dalzedur (rogue), Kain (warrior), Aegeljered (necromancer)