Necromancer/Summoner character

[sser]

Stubbs the Zombie.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Dunno how I forgot Morrowind with the right mods, I played through it with exactly this sort of character a year or so ago. There's an in-depth necromancy mod for creating your own revenants, many mods allowing multiple summonings, summoning monsters at range, summoning a broader range of monsters (including custom ones)... and so on. The companion teleport mod allows for a lot more control over how/when you summon, as well. Normally, conjuration stops being useless by about level 15, but with these mods (only a few total, honest) it's still proving useful at level 25+.

 

[aron searle]

Guild wars, but it's on-line only and probably rather dead now.

 

[DraQ]

Dunno how I forgot Morrowind with the right mods, I played through it with exactly this sort of character a year or so ago. There's an in-depth necromancy mod for creating your own revenants, many mods allowing multiple summonings, summoning monsters at range, summoning a broader range of monsters (including custom ones)... and so on. The companion teleport mod allows for a lot more control over how/when you summon, as well. Normally, conjuration stops being useless by about level 15, but with these mods (only a few total, honest) it's still proving useful at level 25+.

You can keep conjuration useful even unmodded - you just have to use summons in swarms (tricky without MCP, as you have to combine different types of summons in single spell, since you can't repeatedly use the same effect). You can also buff your summons.

A summoner character using some CE summons in addition to the techniques I mentioned should be quite powerful.

Still, summoning at range and detailed necromancy sounds pretty sweet - do list mods.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Blasphemous Revenants for the necromancy - I think it's even lore-friendly, he consulted the lore forum about it in detail. Enhanced Summoning for the ranged summons; it also has a couple of other things, including warping companion scripts for all summoned creatures.

 

[Gregz]

Based on flabbyjack's thread and the youtube LPs I've seen, Dominions 3 wins. Looking forward to it.

 

[DraQ]

Blasphemous Revenants for the necromancy - I think it's even lore-friendly, he consulted the lore forum about it in detail.

I remember considering it rather seriously, but in the end decided not to use it, since it seems to give you a specific location for necromantic rituals rather than trying to introduce generalized necromancy mechanics.

Any specific detail that might make me reconsider?

Also, I wince at overt references to external mythologies, like Thanatos temple - ok, in vanilla game there are Scrolls of Icarian Flight, but they're a joke item, mostly.

 

[Ulminati]

Roll up a wizard with conjuration focus (or go for full summoner if you use the advanced player's guide) in Pathfinder.

I'm having all kinds of fun with my conjuration (teleportation) specialist in our pen & paper campaign. Summon monster 3 in paticular is awesome for its level. And with summoner's charm allowing me to extend the duration of summoning spells the summoned creatures usually last an entire fight. (Except if they happen to get killed). As an added bonus, conjuration contains a lot of the really neat fog/wall spells, such as stinking cloud. Add a dash of transmutation, a little illusion and possibly some evocation for the force wall/cage spells and you're sailing.

I reccomend abjuration and necromancy as your opposed schools. Most of the good necromancy spells are resisted with fortitude, which is usually the good save on monsters. Abjuration will mean you lose out on resist elements and dispel magic, but everything else abjuration can do conjuration does better. Buy a wand of protection from evil/law/chaos and consider taking pathfinder savant as a prestige class to allow you to spontaneously convert spells into dispel magic

 

[abnaxus]

Edit: Given we are talking about this, are the Summoner games any good? And is it possible to run them on modern machines and stuffies?

First Summoner is good and runs on Vista, the (shit) sequel is only on PS2/Gamecube.

 

[Mastermind]

Hmm, I'm kinda disappointed with the options presented in this thread. I haven't played a necro in a while and the OP whetted my appetite to play one.

Isn't everyone here supposed to be a walking RPG encyclopedia?

There must be better alternatives to these. Then again, maybe the necromancer is a neglected PC?

Not that many rpgs focus on letting you summon shit to fight for you.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

seriously though in magic the gathering you can larp a very respectable necromancer with what in community parlance is referred to as 'theme decks'

Guild wars, but it's on-line only and probably rather dead now.

gw necro minions are less of a 'BEFOUL THE LANDS MY DARK LEGIONS' thing and more of a 'bad guys please attack these rapidly decaying wretched things while my party takes advantage of the distraction' affair

unless you use curses of course but that doesn't make them any cooler

 

[Mastermind]

A good Guild Wars necromancer (IE: not me) can steamroll maps solo with an army of minions.

 

[OracleX]

Thanks people, for all these titles! If there are more I would love to know about them.

 

[betamin]

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup has one of the best implementations of necromancy

 

[Clockwork Knight]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE322LKw9qo

 

[Gregz]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE322LKw9qo

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

ADOM. You can create progressively stronger undead from humanoid corpses when playing a Necromancer by using the Necromancy skill.

 

[Storyfag]

Not quite RPGs, but the Heroes of Might and Magic series has awesome necromancers from part II onwards. You can also check out the warhammer mod for Civilization III. Works like a charm.

 

[Mastermind]

If Strategy/RPG hybrids count, Warlords Battlecry 3 has some pretty decent summoner hero types. Build them right and you don't need to bother with a base in the campaign, just summon elementals/undead with shittons of experience and level the entire map.

 

[OracleX]

I see Torchlight has a summoner kind of character. Didn't it do its job right, since its not mentioned?

 

[Don Peste]

Magic & Mayhem. Hard game, great videos, music, and creatures.

 

[DaveO]

Silverfall/Earth Awakening allows for summons. Completely relying on them though is a different matter. MM7 and MM8 have a limited amount of summon spells or necromancy options.

 

[Elwro]

I see Torchlight has a summoner kind of character. Didn't it do its job right, since its not mentioned?

The Alchemist? Somehow I ended up using the ranged damage spells and buffs. Transforming my pet cat into various creatures was enough for me :D But yes, there are some summoning options...

 

[J1M]

What about the Overlord games?

Not technically a necromancer, but the gameplay is much closer than a lot of the shit suggested here.

 

[Elwro]

Well, you can always try ADOM, but it's tough, or at least I always found it tough as a necromancer.