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Deleted Member 16721

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We wont see secret factions in game cause in Modern Beth games you are expected to entire content in one play through... You are forced to join Mage Guild by Skyrim main Story line for example... even if you RP Warrior or Guild Thief.

Right. But in Morrowind if you didn't know the game and didn't look things up online, you never were quite sure what exactly was or wasn't in the game. I prefer that type of approach. Although Skyrim has some of that as well, as you said you're likely not going to find secret guilds and this sort of thing.
 

Tick Tock Crocodile

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I love playing characters that rely on minions, especially when magic is involved, so I do wish there were more games that let you do this. I think usually games opt to provide that kind of thing with a Ranger and/or Elementalist type of character instead, which is understandable since those have much more neutral moral connotations, making them easier to fit on to blank slate characters and into settings in general.

They're usually also a lot less interesting, though. I want my skellies :(
 

Daemongar

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Codex Year of the Donut
RPGs tend to draw from fiction, that's why there's so much high fantasy, so... are there any good fantasy novels where the (villain) protagonist is a necromancer?

There was some book that came out in the 50's or whatever. Something about some little guys and one of them found a ring. You probably haven't heard of it, but it was something like "Lords with the Ring." Think the book also had elves.
Jesus Christ, as if people didn't fucking know that Sauron was a necromancer...
 

octavius

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People know that Sauron was called The Necromancer, but Tolkien used the word necromancer in the meaning "one who dabbles in dark magic", not "one who raises skeletons and zombies from corpses to do his bidding". It's the latter definition that is used in games.
 

Daemongar

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Codex Year of the Donut
People know that Sauron was called The Necromancer, but Tolkien used the word necromancer in the meaning "one who dabbles in dark magic", not "one who raises skeletons and zombies from corpses to do his bidding". It's the latter definition that is used in games.

Can't think of any novels, but Clark Ashton Smith's short story The Empire of the Necromancers is excellent, and tells of how a couple of exiled Necromancers use necromancy to carve out a new empire.

Make up your shit. Either you knew Sauron was a necromancer or you didn't. What, the ring wraiths were alive or something?
 

octavius

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Make up your shit. Either you knew Sauron was a necromancer or you didn't. What, the ring wraiths were alive or something?

Of course I knew Sauron was called The Necromancer, but didn't mention him for reasons already mentioned.

Anyway, The Necromancer in The Hobbit was called so because Tolkien thought it sounded menacing, before Tolkien realized he was Sauron.
 
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Rpgsaurus Rex

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Tales of Maj'eyal. It's a roguelike, though, so might not be your cup of tea.
What makes ToME4 negromancy good is not having to manually manage your crew. DCSS let you negromance to an extent but too much fuckery involved (AND they steal your XP :argh:).
 

Lacrymas

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Pathfinder: Wrath
Sacrifice is a bit different, you summon minions whatever god you choose to follow, but if you go all out on the "evil" one you do get undead minions and you fit the bill for a necro. The game requires time to get used to though, the poor minion management doesn't help.

Otherwise, yeah, I've been clamoring for a necro protagonist for as long as I can remember. Of the examples we DO have, only Diablo 2 and Guild Wars 1 ( and maybe Path of Exile) manage to do it somewhat well and still retain the "atmosphere" of necros. I've heard good things about City of Heroes/Villains, but haven't played it myself. Either they end up way overpowered and, as a result, boring; or very underwhelming (like NWN's Pale Master, with its summon limit of 1). The playstyle is very unique and I suppose it's very hard to balance the vast amount of minions, required to feel like a decent necro, with the other classes. The necro not having minions would gimp it to almost uselessness, but if s/he isn't then s/he's going to be very overpowered when they DO have minions.

I suppose they can nerf the necro depending on how many minions they have. That would allow for many different playstyles, you can use necro-flavored direct spells/curses if you want, but you can also be a minion-master as long as every minion decreases your own strength. It even makes sense, you expend more energy and concentration based on the amount of minions you raise.
 

Deleted Member 16721

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I don't care about having a "protagonist" Necromancer. I would like a more organic approach. I go back to my Morrowind example. Imagine playing the game and finding books detailing how to do Necromancy. You don't get some quest or glowing arrow, you just read the books (that are quite well-hidden) and then follow the steps. Next thing you know, something dead arises. And maybe it starts talking to you. Or maybe some Necromantic Deadric God appears before you, congratulating you on your initiation as a Necromancer. Then you can imagine how it progresses from there, keeping in the overall style of Morrowind. :)

I most certainly would want to be Grandmaster Necromancer Telvanni Archmage Footpad of the Fighter's Guild myself. :)
 

Lacrymas

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Pathfinder: Wrath
I don't know why you bracket "protagonist", it's a legitimate and correctly-used word.
 

Deleted Member 16721

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You're right, it is. I just associate that term as describing a premade character. I'd prefer to create my own character and then become a Necromancer because it was something to do in the game, not because I'm playing as Geralt of Necromancia. :P
 

Lacrymas

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Pathfinder: Wrath
Eh, sure, why not. That would be a classless system, but I don't prefer one over the other and I'm not sure how that's entirely relevant to this conversation.
 

Deleted Member 16721

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Not just class or classless, but in terms of a game that would include Necromancy itself as a discipline, school of magic, faction or something else. While a story-based RPG where you play the game as a Necromancer could be interesting, I am more in favor of simply making it a side thing one could get involved in in a magical world. Sort of like becoming a Vampire Lord in Skyrim, or a Vampire in general in the TES games from Morrowind on. That is more of just my gameplay preference in RPGs lately, though.

Probably not relevant to the discussion other than being Necromancer-related, but there you go. :)
 

Invictus

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Divinity: Original Sin 2
Not just class or classless, but in terms of a game that would include Necromancy itself as a discipline, school of magic, faction or something else. While a story-based RPG where you play the game as a Necromancer could be interesting, I am more in favor of simply making it a side thing one could get involved in in a magical world. Sort of like becoming a Vampire Lord in Skyrim, or a Vampire in general in the TES games from Morrowind on. That is more of just my gameplay preference in RPGs lately, though.

Probably not relevant to the discussion other than being Necromancer-related, but there you go. :)
As a matter of fact one of my favorite mods for Morrowind involved actually becoming a lich and beign able to creat your own undead minions
It was such a cool mod that I wondered why more developers didnt take the idea and run too
That would have been so great in Battle Brothers if you could turn your group into a band of undead
 

Deleted Member 16721

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As a matter of fact one of my favorite mods for Morrowind involved actually becoming a lich and beign able to creat your own undead minions
It was such a cool mod that I wondered why more developers didnt take the idea and run too
That would have been so great in Battle Brothers if you could turn your group into a band of undead

That sounds like a great mod and exactly the type of thing I'd like to see more of. Also, kind of reminds me of Divinity II and the system for creating (literally, from pieces of cadavers, etc.) your Undead minion. The thing about those types of features that really hits me is how out of left field they are. They aren't hugely promoted even inside the game, so you sort of stumble on them and then say, "Huh, that's cool." I guess that is what my Yammering here is boiling down to. :)
 

mondblut

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Thing is, a Necromancer powerful enough to be really interesting usually means a transition to a strategy game.

This. Necromancer is no adventurer. Necromancer sits in his dungeon spamming animate dead until he has enough chaff to conquer something because reasons.
 

Mastermind

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
When I first played Morrowind in 2003 or so, I was convinced that becoming a Necromancer was in the game. That is, when you find the various tomes that are related to Necromancy, giving you instructions, etc., I thought it was either a hidden faction or there was some hidden "trick" to becoming a Necromancer. It wasn't until I started looking on the internet years later that I found out it wasn't in the game.

It's in the game, nothing stopping you from calling your class necromancer and summoning undead. In fact my fondest Morrowind memory was when I larped a necromancer who built a large undead army and attacked Ald Ruhn. The guards made short work of them (it didn't help that I had a few storm atronachs whose attacks did area damage and probably hurt my army more than theirs) and then proceeded to beat the tar out of my character.
 

Deleted Member 16721

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It's in the game, nothing stopping you from calling your class necromancer and summoning undead. In fact my fondest Morrowind memory was when I larped a necromancer who built a large undead army and attacked Ald Ruhn. The guards made short work of them (it didn't help that I had a few storm atronachs whose attacks did area damage and probably hurt my army more than theirs) and then proceeded to beat the tar out of my character.

True. While I want it as a side thing I also want it more fleshed out than it is in Morrowind. :)

I would like to see Necromancy either be another school of magic altogether in Morrowind, perhaps a few quests for a Necromancer faction or duties for some obscure, well-hidden Necromancer who's hiding out in a Daedric ruin somewhere, and perhaps a few extra perks that are ruleset related, such as what the Vampire gets and what not. Only it might be a new "Power" or two, perhaps a few special spells. Maybe an underground lair you can furnish, like the Vile Lair DLC from Oblivion. Stuff like that. The magic school could also be hidden and only "unlocks" when you have sufficient knowledge of Necromancy, or are taught the spells.

As for just role-playing it, it needs more stuff, IMO. I do love playing a High Elf Summoner, though. Especially with that amulet that summons an Ice/Fire/Storm Atronach at once. My old man calls them the Stooges. You can understand why when you see me use the amulet and then re-load in about 10 seconds because the Atronachs all belted me with their area-of-effect magic at the same time. All that just to try and kill a scamp or something. Good times. :P
 

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