Necromancer: The OCC Review

[Northern Ranger]

I'm a great deal more familiar with the Necromancer from PF, but I'm pretty happy with that OCC the way it sits. Pretty much every aspect of the mage seems to fit in with the concept behind it. A practitioner of death magic, who by default has to be evil. I generally use them as NPC villains, but I can totally see someone playing one as a character.

[Vrykolas2k]

I'm a great deal more familiar with the Necromancer from PF, but I'm pretty happy with that OCC the way it sits. Pretty much every aspect of the mage seems to fit in with the concept behind it. A practitioner of death magic, who by default has to be evil. I generally use them as NPC villains, but I can totally see someone playing one as a character.

well, no, they don't have to be evil... Anarchist and Unprincipled are also open IIRC.

[Northern Ranger]

I stand corrected. Perhaps it would have been more accurate to say that no good aligned character is allowed to be a Necromancer. Death magic at its nature would prevent it.

[asajosh]

Union with Dead: In it's current form, I don't get this power. The Necro is going to replace his hand/foot with that of an animal for combat stats? In the process, with most of the appendages remove the ability to use tools. The feet replacements look fairly useful as they can provide some speed bonuses, but the hands just don't make any sense for a mage who is going to rely on minions to do fighting for him.

I think you are misunderstanding how this power works, the necromancer in quesion ties a to his existing hand (like tying a tiger paw to your existing hand), then the limb transforms into the animal version. The necromancer is only "replacing" his hand temporarily and non surgically.

[MethosDarkblade]

I tend to go for one of the 4 horsemen Necros in Rifter 8. The "Death" mage alone is how a normal necromancer should be (although I am at school and do not have my books on me, so I can not elaberate on the nature of the character class)

[asajosh]

I know the Union with Dead is only temporary, I just can't understand the reasoning behind it. Without a HTH skill (unless you ditch some other skills), no necromancer is going to going to get into combat himself. Plus, the things you can attach to hands aren't all that useful.

Can't they attach SN critter hands?

[Talavar]

You can't have dragon eyes, but you can have a dragon skull, which is pretty good.

[Ahulane]

I seriously don't understand what your trying to get at...

Your upset at how disappointing of a villain he is? Well if he's just 1st level then ya, he's going to be pretty weak...like every thing else pretty much. Level 5? 10? 15? Past 3 is when they start to get awesome to the max, before then you need to rely mostly on subterfuge to get around, still even around 5 you'll be sneaking around to accomplish your goals.

By the looks of it, Bruce is going to slaughter Lenny pretty quickly.Hmm, maybe I should make an NPC that isn't supernatural. What other man-at-arms-OCC should I munch out to make an enemy for Lenny?

Lol, your comparing a level 1 human Necromancer to a level 1 Undead Slayer? Ummmm, talk about getting the **** end of the stick in that fight, OF COURSE HE WOULD LOSE! And then again your list of possible enemies...Juicer (obvious), Crazy (just as obvious), Borg (why are does he bother?), Headhunter (little better but still super deadly), Glitterboy (huh???!?!) The only thing that would put the Necromancer on somewhat even footing is if he used Strength of the Dead on a corpse with slightly more MDC to off-set the minor differences in combat bonuses...I mean hell...the Undead slayer has 200 MDC and 188 PPE while the Necro has 12 MDC and what, 70 PPE? Thats less a little over 1/20th the MDC and less than 1/2 the PPE...how is that an equal and comparable fight? 1 power punch from the slayer and even with Necro armor up if the slayer rolled average the necro would die in one hit!

You want a level 1 Necromancer who doesn't use spells AT ALL, to go up against PURE COMBAT OCC's!?! What do you expect, he doesn't get **** for gear, all of those OCC's can pretty much 1 shot him regardless and then you complain about how lousy he is? Come on dude....

If you want a scary awesome pure melee Necromancer then go and find a copy of Rifter 8...whip yourself up a Murder Mage and have at it...thats about as combat oriented as your going to get for a Necromancer. Make the dude level 7 and watch him decimate **** with his bare hands! Don't make a comparison fight with a 1st level Necromancer and a Phase World level arch-nemesis OCC of Undead Slayer...thats just stupid.

The main purpose behind a necro is SUBTLETY...have your necro beef up a skeleton, pick up sniper, grab a naruni shoulder cannon, transfer life essence into the body then walk your ass to a village and start sniping villagers...when they find you and kill you, your soul goes back to your body and repeat this step until nobody in the village is left alive. Go in and clean up. Profit.

The first two abilities, Augmentation w/ Additional Appendages and Union w/ the Dead aren't just combat oriented...what if your necromacer happens to lose his arm at the shoulder to some crazy demon he failed to bribe...spend some PPE and slap on a new one. 5 minutes a level is great since you have a 90+ % chance of having a spare limb around at any time. Ya its inconvenient but its a lot better than not having the ability at all and being up **** creek with 1 less limb...

Horror Factor....why...oh why...would you ever get rid of this ability? Random do gooder enters your home after somehow making it past all your traps and other minions...BAM, dude runs away because your so damn evil or starts to cry for his mommy. Now the guy has combat penalties to fight against you if his roll failed and your suddenly at that much more of an advantage.

Insanities are optional and a person could be completely sane and still like to run around naked with dead bodies strapped to himself...ya its not normal, but maybe thats a hobby of his. What you consider crazy and what I do are to completely different things...if anything, I'd do away with the mandatory insanities and allow a saving throw vs. insanity to apply. What if its the only thing he's good at and its either learn death magic or get eaten by some wild monster? Would he still be crazy to learn it?

Death Strike: D- If a Necro has to get into HTH, they are in some serious trouble. Why bother?

Any weapon such as a sword/knife/club plus your own bare hands and feet do double damage...face rockage...you think he's down after you blast him with your laser gun and he manages to stab you with a dagger when you get close enough doing DOUBLE DAMAGE! then proceeds to lay the hate on you tearing through you with ease...this is awesome when combined with supernatural strength and a good weapon...Battle Fury Blade, Death Strike, SN PS = win

Um...you don't know where the local graveyard is? Even small towns will probably bury their dead communaly. Should'nt be hard to find. Useful if you have to find a body you secretly buried or for someone spesific.

What about villages who use old style burial? Or ones that wish to hide the existance of their dead from others...what about secret ancient pre-rifts tombs and graves...how awesome would it be to stumble upon the tomb of gengis khan?

Kill Plant: C- I can kill a plant because I'm evil! Just....dumb. It's not big enough to hit crops and while it does a large dose of SDC damage to plants, I can't imagine an orchid having that many hit points.

Tree/plant people, what if there is a tree or a cluster of roots/plants/shrubs blocking your path...well not anymore because you have KILL PLANTS! woot!

Recognize the Undead: D- This is just a dumb idea for a spell. I would make this a regular necromantic power.

Agree that it should be automatic since death is their profession.

Shadows of Death: F I can't figure out what shadows have to do with death. Or why it costs so much PPE for being so useless. It really doesn't have anything to do with dead bodies, making dead bodies move around, killing things or bringing things back to an unlife. It makes shadows move around.

This makes the character paranoid and jumpy, plus they have trouble sleeping. Penalties: Tired from lack of sleep and constantly being on edge, reduce speed and endurance/fatigue levels by 20% and all combat bonuses are -1.

This would be used to help gain control of an area or force someone to do something for you in exchange for negating the magic so they could rest easy.

Summon Maggot: C+ I like the idea of a Necro getting to summon something big and bad and nasty, but I'm not seeing the connection between the demon known as a Maggot and the theme behind Necromancy. There has to be a better baddie around to be summoned that fits more with the concept.

I feel mutually the same about this spell...it's useful if you can muster the PPE needed to summon...but really...why bother when its only 12 hours a level? Your going to need to sacrifice at least a few things to get the PPE to summon that even at high levels. Likewise for the Worms of Taut spell...useful, but its super huge PPE is a big drawback.

I say dump the idea of replacing body parts for combat stats. Get rid of direct damage spells unless they have a LARGE PPE requirement and make sense. Get rid of combat enhancing spells. Dump bonuses that would affect combat.

Bad idea...even common magic casters like LLW, Shifter and the like still use combat enhancing spells, its for the possibility of having to engage in HtH combat that they have these spells.

As to what to add, I'd like to see some spells dealing with disease. A nice plague is always helpful to a necromancer.

You know if it's related to necromancy you can pick it up and learn it normally without any penalty to casting cost right? Your not totally prevented nor unable from casting any other magic but Death Magic....magic thats unrelated just costs extra.

I remember someone saying they outfit a necro of theirs with Fleshsculptor magic and Blood Magic...Those 2 types right there are scary enough on their own...combined with Necromancy they'd be crazy strong...think of saving the skin of your victims and slapping it on your minions then sculpting it to look more life like and have them take up strategic locations within a village?

I'm a great deal more familiar with the Necromancer from PF, but I'm pretty happy with that OCC the way it sits. Pretty much every aspect of the mage seems to fit in with the concept behind it. A practitioner of death magic, who by default has to be evil. I generally use them as NPC villains, but I can totally see someone playing one as a character.

There's virtually no difference between a PF Necro or a Rifts Necro other than damage types (HP/SDC/MDC).

Can't they attach SN critter hands?

Yes, even dragon claws.

Making a Necro tough for battle is like making an operator tough for battle. It can be done, sure, but wouldn't that defeat the point of an operator?

Not in the least...think a field technician for the Coalition who needs to be able to fight as well as fix on the spot...having the basics of the Operator OCC down and then adding into the mix some almost average combat abilities at the cost of a few skills isn't that bad...same thing with the Necro...

Are physically weak and unable to dominate with physical prowess.

Ever try carrying another person around from your local graveyard to your house? It's not as easy as you think and you don't start off with any henchmen either, you have to go and find them. If you choose to animate the body instead of carrying it you have to take into account that you may get ambushed on the way back to your hideout so you may want to carry or drag it periodically and not drain your PPE for a few minutes of less work when that PPE could be used for other more direct attack or control spells if you get in trouble.

If I was already someone who was physically powerful, would I need to attracted to the dark art to get power?

Besides, there already is a combat necromancer, a Harvester.

Dude, I'm pretty strong myself, but if I had a choice I'd take Necromancer over any other spell casting OCC out there (minus the Spatial Mage). A harvester isn't any more combat oriented that a pure Necromancer...they just get WAAAAAAAY better bonuses, and they have to serve a psycho AI.

As for not having dragon eyes and only a skull, if you simply restrict yourself to the list provided by the Africa book, you only have hand attachments, feet attachments, horns, wings and a tentacle. That's cool for a while, but gets dull because of the lack of variety. I think the skin of other creatures should be used, as grotesque as it sounds. Like, elven skin would give a large boost to PB, changeling skin makes the person a metamorph and dragon scales give armor. Eyes could be used to differing effects, along with tongues, hair, blood, saliva, fingernails, muscles, rib cages and so on and so forth.

I should really make a list of that stuff.

Theres nothing that says you can't, but there are things like that already...Wear the Face of Another lets you cut off the face of a person who has died recently and attach it to your own assuming a false guise. No dragon eyes? Big deal...the skull is way more powerful and gives you any abilities you'd probably gain from having one of their eyes anyways. Don't forget about tails for the attachments. If you want to have crazy stuff like what your mentioning that would definately make anyone who took the OCC a complete psychopath as well as uber munchy, then go for it...make a house rule...

Spells: Oh no no no. This is a battle Necro, remember? He'll be Hand to Hand combat a great deal and won't be able to get spells off since he'll be taking damage a lot. Besides, any spell that dishes out some hefty damage, he'll have two pay TWICE the PPE cost if it is not on his list...and I'm not seeing much damage causers on the list. To be nice, I'll let the character cast Death Strike before combat so he can double his damage.

Taking away his ability to cast spells would defeat the purpose of being a Necromancer in the first place...just make him a vagabond if your going to do that then put him against your undead slayer with 200 MDC + Tattoos' and gawd knows what else. That'd be about the same power level...


Your missing the point to a necromancer I think...they are essentially a utility OCC, yes they can spec. combat or heavy magic, but still their basic function is utility/subterfuge...You should be praising this OCC and its awesomeness because compared to other Necromancer classes that belong to other assorted games, this one by far is the only one that actually is what it says it is. A lot of their spells relate to making trinkets out of dead bodies, speaking with the dead, seeing the past or future through the dead, talking with spirits, etc...which is what they were known for in the real world...the animate dead, create zombie/mummy, attach extra body parts, call vampires/demons, etc. are all the crazy RPG fan crap (err well not really crap, but still, its not what necromancy really is, which is just communing with the dead).

Seriously though, pick up Rifter 8 and check out the variants in that book...the Curse Bringer and Death Walker are super cool, but if your looking for the end all be all of hand to hand combat for a necromancer then pick up a Murder Mage or two and have them go crazy.

I know I'm being fairly facetious here but I think it proves a point. A necromancer is not a Man-At-Arms. He only gets impressive when I cheat and try to max him out. He's not even all that impressive. If he were made by the rules, he would SUCK at hand to hand combat, even with all the skills I gave him.

A Necromancer OCC (not the variants but the actually OCC) is more stealth/subterfuge (mentioned that several times now), so compare him to OCC's like Spy, Wilderness Scout, Smuggler, Professional Theif...not a friggan Juicer for crying out loud...thats a totally different power level.

Comparing classes is a WASTE of time, it is the GM's and player's creativity that makes it work. You could "what if" any class to make it look potentially better than any other.

Not really...try compareing a Cosmo Knight with a CS Grunt...far different on the scales of power there, same with a Necromancer and a Juicer. Something that would on equal footing with a Cosmo-Knight would be an Invincible Guardsman or a Gunbrother.

Try not to take this post as an attack or anything, this is just an OCC that I'm basically forbidden from playing in my little group of friends for multiple reasons, so when I see someone tearing through it saying that it's basically broken, I have to disagree.

[Ahulane]

Yeah, sorry about the last post, finals are coming up and I'm struggling to get my **** together, saw this post, just went off.

I guess I'm struggling to understand why Palladium gave Necro's "Union with Dead" power and then made it combat oriented. I would have liked to have seen them go an non-combat path with Union so they could pick up neat (but temporary) skills, abilities and powers from the Union.

Maybe it could be that it's for the theatrical/intimidate effect...You encounter random necro and he suddenly picks up a severed limb and attaches it to his side giving him a horribly mutilated and disgusting 3rd arm (roll horror factor). The combat bonuses are there to off-set his rather sucky hand to hand ability. Regardless if he's supposed to be engaging in hand to hand combat or not, the fact remains, some bonuses for SOMETHING, is better than no bonuses at all. Still...even the most minor of bonuses provided by Union with the dead is awesomsauce even if you don't have a Hand to Hand style.

I don't have my books with me right now but can't union also be used on other people and not just yourself?

I think you make a good point about loosing a limb and attaching a part to help compensate for it. I think that makes a GREAT deal of sense for a Necro who either can't or doesn't want a bio-system. I'd probably house rule that if they spend X ppe, they can increase the duration, or even make the limb part of their arm/leg until it rots and falls off.

There is another Rifter (I forget which one) but it has Techno-Wizard varients, one of which is a Necro-Tech Techno-Wizard...they can make crazy techno-wizard bionics that utilize dead body parts which give supernatural PS and MDC at the cost of permanent PPE. Swapping out an arm with one of these things would be most beneficial even at the cost of permanent PPE, plus their not all that expensive or difficult to make. This is just an example of how Union could be used for other applications.

Now this I LIKE. Where are those magics at? I think my little NPC would love to get a hold of those, even with the increased PPE cost.

Fleshsculptor magic can be found in Through the Glass Darkly (Nightbane) and Blood Magic is a Rifter submission for some alternate forms of Wormwood magic. I'll dig through my books later and find which rifter it's in cause I can never remember off hand (theres 2, one with the OCC and another with extra spells).

I would imagine getting a Dragon Skull to be....difficult/expensive. Dragon eyes, probably less so. My NPC is on a budget and may not be able to haul a dragon skull around with him anyway. They are fairly large and noticeable.

Very, not to mention that if you go to Atlantis you'd be hunted down and slaughtered in the streets if they saw you with one.

I would argue that the Necro simply brings along a couple of Zombies to do the heavy lifting. That way, if he is ambushed, he's got back up and doesn't have to lug a body around. He could even make them dig. The best thing, Zombies don't belong to a Union.

Remember though, 1st level Necro has no where near the PPE to create a Zombie and even if he did belong to a cult it would still take some time to get the proper body for zombification. If its just 1st level and your scouring for bodies to animate then hauling them back with your own muscle would be more probable. Yes I agree that this OCC would typically draw a physically weaker set of individuals, but I guess there's nothing that says you can't be a power lifting psychopath either.

I took away the ability to cast magic in combat of the so called "battle necro" because I've seen so many people want to take them directly into HTH combat and then start slinging spells around. Under direct attack, the mage can only cast spells Level 1-5. That means that of the Necro spells, only 9 can be utilized in combat. Of those 9, 4 are useful (Death Mask, Kill Plants, Stench of the Dead, and Command Ghouls). Of the regular spells he gets, most would be useful on trying to escape combat. I suppose he could learn lots of non-regular spells, but he's going to be paying double PPE for those, in or outside of combat. Considering his low PPE base, that's probably not going to last too long.

A Hand to Hand oriented Necromancer would be the same concept wise as a Battle-Magus from Federation of Magic. So he wants to excel at close combat, that doesn't mean he does away with all spell casting completely, it just means that he's going to relying alot on the lower level spells and casting anything higher than 6th level is not his best option. I don't know if you have book of magic or not but there is also the Shape Bone spell in that book that is extremely useful for virtually anything a Necromancer can do. Fireball oddly enough counts as a Necromancer spell and is only level 6, who needs anything else? When there is something that's immune to fire and your minions are down then cast Death Bolt, even if they save against that spell then they still have some nice penalties and take 1/2 damage.

But he will never do that in HTH. Not with Death Touch, Supernatural Strength, Fury Blade combos. Not even with munched out stats. He just won't last that long in combat. And I don't want him too. Which is why I can't understand Union with Dead having so many combat modifiers.

True, against dragons and Cosmo-Knights he may not be much of a threat even with those things...but IF he was to land a hit with those, no doubt they'd take a step back and re-evaluate their assumption of that individual. What if prior to his engaging a Cosmo-Knight (lets say their both 10th level) he had found the body of a Metzla, cast strength of the dead, and now has like 5k MDC? Sure the Cosmo-Knight can fly, has supernatureal PS, awesome weapons and abilities, but now he has to fight a guy who's only got some rudimentary combat ability and an infinately renewable corpse to draw health from and bolster his defenses. Yeah he could try to focus his attention on the corpse and try to reduce it to ashes...but what if it's been enhanced prior to their encounter and is really animated and just lying in wait for him to step closer. A necro that is battle ready can be one of the scariest things out there...like you said, they 'could' give those beings pause...its just how far are they willing to go and careful do they want to be. Your average necromancer is a raving lunatic with an obsession with rotting pieces of meat and torturing people. We haven't seen the careful calculating type and we probably won't ever see one because of the way they all go about their business.

I'll take a look at it......but I don't want a combat Necro. It's what I'm arguing against.

Then you'd be more interested in the Death Walker (animated dead specialist) or Curse Bringer (Curse specialist), the latter being the best of the two IMO since they get access to spoiling magic and have a bio-manipulation power that gives crazy ailments.

I have to agree with your GM. I don't see much point in a player having a Necro. I don't think it is broken, I think that Palladium took a couple of wrong directions in where a Necro should go instead of where it did go. I think we both agree that HTH combat is just not a good idea for a Necro unless he far outclasses his opponents, much like he was outclassed by the Undead Slayer.

It's basically because I get "in the zone" and spend countless hours just making furniture and beefing up my minions, among other things. When I make a combat one I just make a Murder Mage to save time and have him spend his free time researching and studying to get extra spells.

Again sorry about the last post, wasn't really thinking, just kinda went into auto-pilot and started typing.

[Ahulane]

The Necro-Technowizard idea I like, especially if he can use it to augment his hordes. If there was a way to make them cheaply, that would rock. They don't have to be super cool, but adding claws, chitien, teeth, sabres, small bio-blast weapons to zombies would be neat. Even if it was expensive, he could use it on powerful servants to make nasty uglies to do battle for him. Zombies with Lightning blasters. Cool.

Rifter 13 is the Techno-Wizard book. They have listed information on Legs, Arms and hands and their specialty are Zombie Horror's which are just enhanced Zombie's basically, with a host of Techno-wizard attachments.

Think shoulder-mounted death bolt cannons, by passes armor, get around 10th level and have an army of animated dead and you'd have skelebot equivalents.

Your senario with the Cosmo-Knight and the spell Strength of the Dead got me thinking. It's handy to have the spell, especialy if you know you are going to be in trouble. Wouldn't it be a neater spell though if you could use it to augment, say, a Zombie? Imagne using Strength of the Dead on a Metzla to give your Zombie 5,000 MDC.

I've frequently thought of this idea, a machine that connects to a corpse and anyone who steps onto a platform spends x amount of PPE and presses a button or flips a switch (ppe batteries could be used instead) gets a minor boost to their damage capacity. it's only 2 minutes a level, but hey, thats not too bad, even at 2 minutes if your fighting some average NPC's and you managed to find some crazy MDC heavy creature then for that time period your pretty much invulnerable to harm.

I just checked the Africa book and it looks like Union with the Dead is only for the Necromancer, which I would probably change. What better way to blackmail someone than to disfigure them and force them to work for you so you could take way those goat horns or rotting leg? Appropriately evil too.

Yes, you'd just have to increase the duration in exchange for the bonuses that would come from having those attachments...which would give you a little more of a choice...do you just want the arm as a substitute or do you want to wreck some people with it? short duration for combat long duration for more permanent replacements.


Shadow Magic (which is another cool spell set) can be found in Rifter 20 as well as the Library of Bletherad for PF, that book has some good necro spells in it as well. Blood Magic is in Rifter 2 and the extra spells are in 17.

[Lenwen]

Lvl 1 Tokanii Necromancer ; Sup Str .4d6....Sup PE 4d6+3(24)...MDC-72 Wait a tick .. this charecter just hit 20 years old .. +10 more mdc ....MDC-82 ... 100 % regeneration of Bone armor as well as hands and Feet . I unfortunatly do not have the necromancer OOC in any of my current books but if I was going to toss a Necro into a H2H against an undead slayer .. You bet your ass It would be this one . Now that makes me wonder what other OCC abilities this necro would get at level one . And this is not a munchie Necro either . It is simply as close to a H2H necro as I could personally find . Course you could easily munchie this toon out relativly nicely if you wanted to .

-Lenwen.

[Ahulane]

Lvl 1 Tokanii Necromancer ; Sup Str .4d6....Sup PE 4d6+3(24)...MDC-72 Wait a tick .. this charecter just hit 20 years old .. +10 more mdc ....MDC-82 ... 100 % regeneration of Bone armor as well as hands and Feet . I unfortunatly do not have the necromancer OOC in any of my current books but if I was going to toss a Necro into a H2H against an undead slayer .. You bet your ass It would be this one Very Happy . Now that makes me wonder what other OCC abilities this necro would get at level one . And this is not a munchie Necro either . It is simply as close to a H2H necro as I could personally find . Course you could easily munchie this toon out relativly nicely if you wanted to .

Tokanii are the ****. Always geek out when I see these guys, as a Necro, they'd rock once they got their hands on Shape Bone and a pretty decent sized pool of PPE. They could effectively do what the main character in Full Metal Alchemist does by shaping their own bony hide.

And then, could you imagine if this guy had a sizable amount of PPE of his own and died after investing in the Return from the Grave spell?? He'd be one crazy ass mofo. Being a master level vampire, no master, no dirt limitation, insane ass amount of HP, added levels of regeneration (maybe).

Crazyness