Necromancy changes for summons

[Lexstrus]

I have been playing as a Necromancy focus Pale Master for some time now and I have noticed that the balance between necro spells and the summons doesn't feel good. Many of the necromancy spells use the save or die mechanic which is quite powerful and understandably strong enemies have immunities to these effects, bosses for example. Negative energy and level drain are often affected as well but are sometimes still useable. In terms of PvP, spells such as Death Ward are very commonly available and easily accessible so it is easy to counter these spells. I've have noticed playing as a necromancer that I often can not rely on these spells for these reasons and so I use undead summons to handle most situations. I in fact have focused my build as much as possible towards improving my undead summons at the cost of my own character's power, something I wanted to do from the beginning.

The issue I have noticed is that the undead summons feel quite lackluster, at least from the perspective of a character that is built to be as minion focused as possible. I'll break down some of the problems I see in a list;

1. The strongest undead summon spell we get is Create Greater Undead, a lvl 8 spell. Conjuration has access to; Greater Planar Binding/Ally and Summon Monster 8, both lvl 8 spells. Gate and Summon Monster 9, both lvl 9 spells. Epic: Gate and Dragon Knight, which are Epic Feat spells. Technically necromancy has Epic: Vampiric Feast but it requires bypassing spell resistance and the enemy failing a save to actually summon the creature. The undead shadow, while being quite difficult to kill, lacks the offense to be effective and is short lived.

2. Undead summon spells have very limited choices in what can be summoned. Create Greater Undead allows you to choose between a Vampire Warrior, a Bone Giant and a Ghost. Having tested all three in various scenarios the only viable summon is the Vampire Warrior. The Bone Giant and the Ghost perish far to quickly to be effective in any way and there does not seem to be any specific purpose for them either. Conjuration spells have a wide selection of creatures to summon, some of them being undead (such as the Nightwalker) and because it is a conjuration spell, does not benefit from HD increases from spell focus necromancy.

3. To my knowledge there are no uniquely name summons that apply to undead creatures. The names discovered in dusty tomes and given by DMs I believe only apply to summons from the Planar and Gate spell series spells. Undead summoners have no way to further enhance the HD or call upon unique undead.

I would like to suggest adding some new undead summon spells, either a lvl 9 spell or possibly a Epic feat that specifically summons undead. Either way gaining benefit from the Spell Focus: Necromancy feats. Taking existing undead summons such as the Nightwalker, balancing it and migrating it over to a necromancy spell is good too. Possibly balancing the stats of existing summons or tuning their builds to be used for a more specialized role. In the future possibly adding the ability to summon uniquely named undead (Vampire Lords come to mind as an example).

Also a quick note, why does the Vampire Warrior use a greatsword but the Pale Master's Vampire use unarmed attacks with feats for weapons? It would be nice to be able to buff the Elite Vampire with weapon spells too.

Sorry for the long post and thank you to anyone who took the time to read it.

[Rain]

Ehhh well being a necromancer myself I would LOVE more undead summon options. But I will have to disagree by saying that the undead currently are not weak in any way. Mind you, we necromancers are the only summoners who get a permanent swarm spell via (animate dead). Summon greater undead vampires also have regeneration which planar bindings lack.

If you need powerful undead quickly Army of Death (I think lvl 8 for wizards?) is actually very very very strong. If you get lucky you can get 3 skeleton mages who all spam Issics missle storms. Or three blackguard ghast who all summon HD 16 hell hounds in addition to themselves.

I will end this by saying that also… if you manage to find an undead named summon via a dusty tome. Your preety much set the named summon can smack anything you need it to and often times has regen and can summon their own undead via animate dead as well. (I understand this is rare… but people are also often willing to trade or sell names if you know who to ask.)

[Lexstrus]

Ehhh well being a necromancer myself I would LOVE more undead summon options. But I will have to disagree by saying that the undead currently are not weak in any way. Mind you, we necromancers are the only summoners who get a permanent swarm spell via (animate dead). Summon greater undead vampires also have regeneration which planar bindings lack.

It is true there are many benefits to the undead summons and they are not weak, the vampire regeneration is very nice and is one of the reasons it's the best summon of the 3. The problem is that most spellcasters compliment their summons with their own spells. No complaints when it comes to buffing your summons, it is really good there but most offensive necromancy spells are useless against many enemies. You are forced to use spells that you don't have spell focus in to beat DC and spell resistance and your buffed summons aren't enough to tackle enemies without your assistance. You only have so many spell slots to carry summon spells and buffs for them, if they are killed too easily then you are trapped re-summoning and re-buffing them until you run out or die.

If you need powerful undead quickly Army of Death (I think lvl 8 for wizards?) is actually very very very strong. If you get lucky you can get 3 skeleton mages who all spam Issics missle storms. Or three blackguard ghast who all summon HD 16 hell hounds in addition to themselves.

Another excellent spell and when it summons a nice mix of units is quite potent. The issue here is the spell's duration is too short even with extend to maintain buffs. The Palemaster's animate dead ability last an hour/lvl which is fantastic but even with desecrate the max HD is 12, so they get destroyed quite easily. A balance of the two would be perfect, if PM animate dead became a lesser army of death that lasted a long time. To avoid it being too powerful, the HD can be reduced to maybe 16 and they won't summon extra minions. It would also be nice if the PM's elite vampire did damage like the vampire warrior (it seems weaker) and could trip or use some other combat ability.

I will end this by saying that also… if you manage to find an undead named summon via a dusty tome. Your preety much set the named summon can smack anything you need it to and often times has regen and can summon their own undead via animate dead as well. (I understand this is rare… but people are also often willing to trade or sell names if you know who to ask.)

If there are indeed undead named summons I was not aware they existed, this would be great, something for me to hunt for. Are they summoned with Create Greater Undead? do they benefit from HD increases from spell focus: necromancy?

[Rain]

If there are indeed undead named summons I was not aware they existed, this would be great, something for me to hunt for. Are they summoned with Create Greater Undead? do they benefit from HD increases from spell focus: necromancy?

There are indeed undead named summons. My necromancer Batibat holds one of the undead named summons in her possession. If you are new to the named summon system I would check the wiki with the wiki button top left of this thread and look over the information.

Also on Army of Death… yes the duration is short but so are all the other swarm spell durations. The swarm spells are me to be used right before a big fight kinda like popping divine power on a cleric. Again I will reiterate that Necromancers are the only ones who have an option to keep their swarms around forever which is luxury in of itself.

[Rinzler]

There are indeed undead named summons.

Do they require epic gate, planar binding, etc? I don't feel like a an undead true name should be a planar being and there's no equivalent to Epic Gate in necromancy.

I do agree and have proposed that you should be able to cast weapon of impact on your vampire cohort.

[Rain]

There are indeed undead named summons.

Do they require epic gate, planar binding, etc? I don't feel like a an undead true name should be a planar being and there's no equivalent to Epic Gate in necromancy.

I do agree and have proposed that you should be able to cast weapon of impact on your vampire cohort.

Batibat summons her named Nightwalker with either Gate or Epic Gate (Both work.)

The biggest hurdles you will face is 1. Actually finding a name in a dusty tome... (It's OMEGA rare.) and 2. Having the correct amount of Diplomacy + Lore the Planes to summon it.

[Lexstrus]

Batibat summons her named Nightwalker with either Gate or Epic Gate (Both work.)

That is really exciting to hear but the problem I have there is the +4 HD to undead minions from spell focus Necromancy doesn't apply to Gate and Epic Gate. You would need spell focus Conjuration because they are conjuration spells. I would like to see undead summons in Gate/Epic Gate move into their own Necromancy spells so they benefit from that HD increase.

An example would be a 9th level spell called Exhume that summons a HD 18 Vampire lord that becomes HD 22 with spell focus Necromancy feats. Another would be Epic: Profane Sacrament, an epic spell that calls a HD 20 Bodak (HD 24 with feats) that functions similar to Epic Gate or Dragon Knight.

Obviously the HD are subject to balance changes, what I am asking for is a school of necromancy spell that is our penultimate summon for minion focused necromancers that benefit from our choice in necromancy spell focus.

[Rain]

I'm sure these are all things the devs would love to add in but as ive been told many times there alot of suggestions for new things but very little people in the server with the knowledge to implement said things.

I have knowledge on the toolset, the DM client, 3D modeling, the map editor... etc... because I used to be a Head DM of another server and was in charge of making custom boss fights. It was fun but it takes a while to get everything coded and baked correctly especially when dealing with NWN2's janky systems.

By all means if you want stuff put in: Learn to make it, then show it to the dev team.

[Dolorof]

Batibat summons her named Nightwalker with either Gate or Epic Gate (Both work.)

That is really exciting to hear but the problem I have there is the +4 HD to undead minions from spell focus Necromancy doesn't apply to Gate and Epic Gate. You would need spell focus Conjuration because they are conjuration spells. I would like to see undead summons in Gate/Epic Gate move into their own Necromancy spells so they benefit from that HD increase.

An example would be a 9th level spell called Exhume that summons a HD 18 Vampire lord that becomes HD 22 with spell focus Necromancy feats. Another would be Epic: Profane Sacrament, an epic spell that calls a HD 20 Bodak (HD 24 with feats) that functions similar to Epic Gate or Dragon Knight.

Obviously the HD are subject to balance changes, what I am asking for is a school of necromancy spell that is our penultimate summon for minion focused necromancers that benefit from our choice in necromancy spell focus.

As someone that has played with summons for years now. The extra HD is overestimated by a lot, the main feats to improve summons are the extra stats from augmented summon and the extra ice damage from Beckon the frozen(or frost, can't remember now).

[EasternCheesE]

What summons would you propose for necromancy spells?

[Lexstrus]

What summons would you propose for necromancy spells?

I suppose at the very least a 9th necromancy spell that calls the nightwalker from the gate spell? Could also move the nightwalker from gate to create greater undead, but that doesn't address anything really. Not to mention lore wise you wouldn't just casually create a nightwalker.

if create greater undead is limited to 3 summons than maybe more role specific? vampire has regen so more of a tank type pet. The bone giant could be a damage dealing type with more attacks and attack bonus. The ghost could be either a ranged attacker or spellcaster, maybe uses a standard spell like negative energy ray as a basic attack. It could also fit a more support role, beneficial or debilitating auras and some buff spells.

As someone that has played with summons for years now. The extra HD is overestimated by a lot, the main feats to improve summons are the extra stats from augmented summon and the extra ice damage from Beckon the frozen(or frost, can't remember now).

maybe add a feat like beckon the frozen that adds negative energy damage? more summoning specific feats would be a really great addition too.

[Rain]

What summons would you propose for necromancy spells?

Allow an option for Epic Dragon Knight that requires a pre-requisite of evil alignment or Epic spell focus Necromancy thats summons a bone dragon instead of the normal dragon companion. Just use a smaller version of the cursed dragon or dracolitch model (or make something custom).

Add an alternative 9th level spell like mass heal and epic mass heal and instead have mass harm and epic mass harm. So necromancer have a counter spell against heal spammers to keep their undead alive.

Turn create greater undead to a min per level and add an option to it to allow you to select specific skeleton roles from the Army of Death spell. (So add: Skeletal mage, Blackguard Ghast, and greater zombie defender to the list of summons for Create Greater Undead.)

Lastly allow Nightwalker's from Gate and Dusty Tomes to be affected by both Spell focus conjuration and spell focus necromancy (Just have it take the higher of the two or if they are equal the equal number increase.)

Make swarm spell summoning undead in desecrated ground allow for temporary breaks of the 3 minion limit if CL exceeds maximum allowed spawn by double. (Essentially allowing animate dead cast by CL 31 necromancers summon a fourth minion on desecrated spell effects. And CL 35+ summons an extra skeleton from army of death.)

This would be a good start.

[Rinzler]

Those are all good suggestions, Rain. Specifically, I think both a 9th level and epic spell for necromancy summons would be really well received. If that’s too difficult to do, perhaps some more variety for existing necromancy summons and/or more true names of undead beings.

+1

[DaloLorn]

The SRD entries for ghosts, shadows, and greater shadows could be good sources of inspiration on undead buffs, I think. They're all forms of undead, and greater shadows seem particularly scary on account of being able to STR drain things to death.

Lexstrus gave me the idea by mentioning ghost buffs; I had a PnP session this week where a shadowdancer's shade inflicted a lot more damage than it ever could on BG, simply because it drained STR instead of punching things. That STR drain was pretty terrifying on Ravenloft, too...

[Louvaine]

I love Rain's ideas here. Would make me recoonsider summoning undead. At this stage it's not worth the stigma.