Shattered Kingdoms

While I like necros and understand the usefulness of wraiths and such, I'd like to see the other undead receive a bit of a buff.

Instead of animate types being based on the level of the corpse, why not let the necro summon undead based on the type of undead like warlocks do with elementals?

Basically, it'd work like this.

C animate undead skeleton/zombie/wight/wraith/ghoul etc.

The reason I ask this is because, I feel variety helps add to the game. That and some of the other undead actually have useful abilities as well other than just paralyze. The undead of course would come out the same level as the corpse as it does now. I don't think this would be too hard to implement.

Furthermore, I feel warlock elementals should be a bit more evenly distributed as far as power goes. As it stands now, a fire elemental is basically the best one you can get, but water / air / earth all have their uses, yet fire seems to be the only one with any real immunities and such. I think the other elementals should be a bit more useful they are now. Thoughts?

Edit: For warlocks, I want to expand a bit and say that the elementals should scale better. What I mean is that the air, water and earth should also have the same immunities that fire does, ie low level weaponry etc. Sorry, I was tired and at work when I wrote this.

I like the 1st suggestion, although I still think you'd need to be certain level and have certain level corpses for certain undead. ie. be GM with a champion/GM corpse for wraith, like it is now. But being able to summon a GM ghoul instead would be cool, sure.
No opinion on the warlocks, never played one.

I agree I agree!

That's a pretty good idea on necro's being able to determine what type of undead they want.

Achernar mentioned this earlier and I dug up my post a while back. So technically this isn't a thread necro.

I wanted to expand on the ideas. I think that if necros had animates, perhaps make them scouts or something so they can't trip but can still use swords / spears (Honestly, I don't think any necro has the patience to give undead arrows..I tried it with wights. It's stupidly hard to keep up with) and gives them some decent output without bashability or insane damage output via frenzy. They could still get fury or such, but make them undead so pills and herbs wouldn't work on them like with warlock elementals.

The undead would have their uses. Zombies have higher HP, skeletons chill touch which is a nice maledict that is often overlooked, ghouls poison and wights plague. It'd give a nice selection and if they were all scouts, it would make necros rely on controls for bashing capabilities like other classes.

I'm completely new to the mud, and have never played a necro, nor even seen one but here's a thought:

Assign each type of undead a level value 1 to 50 (likely based on the level of the corpse). (This likely already happens). Determine what summation of levels is Balanced - 100 levels, 150 levels, I don't know. Allow Necromancers the chance to have a total of undead up to that balanced point safely with no fear of reprisal.
IF the necromancer exceeds that level marker, then consider having a random chance for minions to turn on the necromancer. Be that upon creation, or during their journey, or after they are ordered. Have another point along the spectrum where it's guaranteed that the minion turns on the necromancer. These type of spectrums could change based on level and ART.

For example at level 50 you could have the following spectrum

1 -- SAFE -- 150 (+ 2 x ART) -- Possible with Chance of Loss of Control -- 250 (+ 1 x ART) -- Guaranteed Loss of Control

OR at level 40 you could have

1 -- SAFE -- 120 (+ 2 x ART) -- Possible with Chance of Loss of Control -- 200 ( + 1 x ART) -- Guaranteed Loss of Control


Obviously the balancing and numbers need someone with more experience behind them but this idea is just to present a concept.

This type of formula could be used for Charm type skills/spells too.

Not only might a system like this be used as a means to impose balance, but it could prove for some FUN RP too, where crazy Necromancers are taking chances summoning more undead then they should. It also allows for some selection in the type of undead raised. Yes you could raise a huge number of lower level corpses, but then they'd not be the harder ones to beat.

OF Course please preface this thought with my aforementioned lack of any knowledge on the subject.


SIGH - As an addendum, and I'm at work and shouldn't take the time to fix this further. I think I added this to the wrong thread. Anyway it's here now, and I don't have time to find the thread I meant to respond to and tag it there. (Sorry)

Welcome to SK, Aelandron! This particular topic is already a landmine, so I hope that no one will treat you too badly...

RAWR ANIMATE IS USELESS RAWR I SO ANGREH

Oh, hey Aelandron. IMO it's not a good idea to add another layer of volatility to necros, which is already the class with the most uncertainty ingrained within it. Everything that a necro holds dear can already be destroyed and/or turned on him almost instantly, I don't think that necros or sorcs need anything else to deter them from holding too many charms/controls, as they're already limited very heavily in terms of concentration cost and/or mana drain.


I MEAN WTF ANIMATE UNDEAD SUUUUCKS