Best necromancy/skeletons in RPGs

[madhouse]

this game is just so damn good

/thread

What game?

 

[[UCHIHA]XxDarkSasuke420xX]

this game is just so damn good

/thread

What game?

 

[AdolfSatan]

I came hoping to find a nice game to play necromancer but looks like I somehow jumped into a wormhole and travelled back to 2005 because there's someone with a graphic signature.

Dawkinsfan69 alt? Can't be anyone else with that name.

 

[shinoskay]

First off, I made an account JUST for this thread... and here I am committing my necromancy upon it a mere month before it hits 2 years dead!

"Vampies are also HARD capped by his sire's generation." this is only true in OWoD

"But look to Elder Scrolls or D&D. Why anyone would choose Lichdom over vampirism?" A vampire is very hard to kill, but once they are destroyed... thats it. Even when thats not the case... when they do somehow get respawned at their coffin, they usually trail back to it so its easier to find it. A lich with a well hidden phyl can either be careless or be hard to kill but even once they are destroyed they respawn at the phyl. then, a lich being a powerful mage, can usually then use a teleport spell to some location away from the phyl. This then safeguards the location. Ergo, Lichdom is usually better. In dominions and Conquest, I'd probably actually prefer vampirism, its earlier, faster, and usually just as good as lichdom... and it usually comes with regen so you dont maintain annoying afflictions like other immortals do. Also, in conquest, vampires fly and this gives you early access to the sky realm (where the npc's almost always die right away.... annoyingly).

"Dominions is the direction I wish strategy games had taken en masse. It's the roguelike model: fuck graphics whores, fuck the retards, go all in on mechanics." I agree 100 percent, mechanics keep simplifying while graphics intensify. many games dont even advertise gameplay anymore, its all just "look at this cool cinematic" or "check out these graphics brah!" Like, bro, ok, but is this just yet another stupid hack and slash? I dont care if I can use a rubber chicken to bash in the heads of thousands of gnomes and goblins... and whats this button sequence cinematic gameplay trash? I want something more visceral!

Which segues me into my content presentations!
So, I dont know why everyones all up on marrowind and skyrim... no one talks about oblivion. Sure, levitate is gone now but oblivion has most the customizations of morrowind without its annoying hit system (I swear, when I swing a great sword and it passes through my enemy, or worse... I get a recoil effect... and then it says I miss! it makes me so mad!!!!). You can customize spells, weapons, armor, AND you can raise the dead bodies of your enemies and send them to fight your other enemies! Also, it has vampirism. You cant lichify, but you can become a vampire.... the mod community probably could make a lich mod but most people, as you guys have, seem to focus on morrowind (which IS a great game) or skyrim (which kind of makes me wrech at how constrained it is).

Other than oblivion.

there is also Rimworld, you need mods but it has actual necromancy. You can raise the bodies of the dead to fight, or just labor, for you. Raiding an enemy camp? managed to kill a few of their people? raise dead, now let them fight their fallen allies! Oh, are they raiding YOU? did one of YOUR guys die? thats ok, raise dead, they dont get to stop fighting until you say so!!!

Dwarf fortress (rimworld is basically modeled after dwarf fortress) has necromancy as well, I think theirs is actually in the base game. You find a book of necromancy and vuala... theirs is more zany, too. Did your axe cleave off some hair from that goblin? necromancy now makes that hair into a flying monster of doom and strangulation.

Thea 2 is a newer game but it has some necromancy. I've only played long enough to see a god raise some of my people as zombies (all allied) so that they could continue to serve me (and the god by extension) but maybe it has more than that?

Its true though, one of the best aspects about necromancy is the minion crafting. Picking up the wings of a giant bat, grafting them on to an orc, giving him the arms of a bear and the legs of a horse... maybe horns too. Then infusing the body with necrotic energy as if you were Frankenstein channeling lightning into his monster.

I've never seen a game try something like this before.

*edit* oh! I almost forgot...
So, while im not happy with a lot of the new mechanics shifts the dev has done recently.... Dredgers has some pretty cool necromancy. It even lets you eventually become a lich... or a ghost (I tend to prefer to become a ghost, I can body hop or kill enemies by taking over their bodies. About to die? just jump out of my current body and into another one. Facing a particularly annoying enemy? just jump out of my body and try to posses theirs. Or, better yet, slip through a door and run away unimpeded... fund another body... come back, and rickity wreck them.

 

[thesecret1]

I think the advantages of either are pretty easy to see. Going vampire means you gotta be a social animal – you need a regular source of human blood, which necessiates regular contact with the human society in some manner or form, which means you'll spend a major part of your unlife dealing with the practical concerns of that shit and probably won't live more than a century or two before you piss off someone enough to stake you.

As a lich, you have no such concerns. You can just fuck off to some deep dark cave miles below the ground and not see a living soul for several thousand years while devoting 100% of your attention to your magical experiments or whatever else strikes your fancy. You're practically free of any danger unless you decide to stage a powerplay of some sort or something to draw the world's attention, and even if you do, you aren't in some mansion out in the countryside, you're dug in what's basically a nuclear shelter where you can survive practically forever – what better defensive position could one even want? With an added bonus that if they still managed to get you, you respawn (and if you picked and hid your phylactery intelligently, they're never gonna find it).

 

[Cryomancer]

I think the advantages of either are pretty easy to see. Going vampire means you gotta be a social animal – you need a regular source of human blood, which necessiates regular contact with the human society in some manner or form, which means you'll spend a major part of your unlife dealing with the practical concerns of that shit and probably won't live more than a century or two before you piss off someone enough to stake you.

As a lich, you have no such concerns. You can just fuck off to some deep dark cave miles below the ground and not see a living soul for several thousand years while devoting 100% of your attention to your magical experiments or whatever else strikes your fancy. You're practically free of any danger unless you decide to stage a powerplay of some sort or something to draw the world's attention, and even if you do, you aren't in some mansion out in the countryside, you're dug in what's basically a nuclear shelter where you can survive practically forever – what better defensive position could one even want? With an added bonus that if they still managed to get you, you respawn (and if you picked and hid your phylactery intelligently, they're never gonna find it).

You are not considering that the phylactery can be the greatest lich weakness. For eg. If you obtained the knowledge of how to make the phylactery from Orcus, I'm pretty sure that the chances of your phylactery ending in his hands are not low. Once someone owns your phylactery, he owns you.

Also, even if you can live forever, what is teh quality of your life? Never feeling any pleasure again, being isolated doing nothing all day? While the vampire is enjoying his vampire brides that never ages and will be always loyal to him.

Benito Mussolini — 'It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.'

 

[thesecret1]

You are not considering that the phylactery can be the greatest lich weakness. For eg. If you obtained the knowledge of how to make the phylactery from Orcus, I'm pretty sure that the chances of your phylactery ending in his hands are not low. Once someone owns your phylactery, he owns you.

Also, even if you can live forever, what is teh quality of your life? Never feeling any pleasure again, being isolated doing nothing all day? While the vampire is enjoying his vampire brides that never ages and will be always loyal to him.

Benito Mussolini — 'It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.'

Phylacteries aren't necessarily owned by anyone other than you in many settings. As for quality of life, I'd say that depends on the person – some might figure that once they become the ultimate masters of magic, they can give themselves whatever feelings they wish? Others might simply not care about such things.

 

[shinoskay]

I think the advantages of either are pretty easy to see. Going vampire means you gotta be a social animal – you need a regular source of human blood, which necessiates regular contact with the human society in some manner or form, which means you'll spend a major part of your unlife dealing with the practical concerns of that shit and probably won't live more than a century or two before you piss off someone enough to stake you.

As a lich, you have no such concerns. You can just fuck off to some deep dark cave miles below the ground and not see a living soul for several thousand years while devoting 100% of your attention to your magical experiments or whatever else strikes your fancy. You're practically free of any danger unless you decide to stage a powerplay of some sort or something to draw the world's attention, and even if you do, you aren't in some mansion out in the countryside, you're dug in what's basically a nuclear shelter where you can survive practically forever – what better defensive position could one even want? With an added bonus that if they still managed to get you, you respawn (and if you picked and hid your phylactery intelligently, they're never gonna find it).

You are not considering that the phylactery can be the greatest lich weakness. For eg. If you obtained the knowledge of how to make the phylactery from Orcus, I'm pretty sure that the chances of your phylactery ending in his hands are not low. Once someone owns your phylactery, he owns you.

Also, even if you can live forever, what is teh quality of your life? Never feeling any pleasure again, being isolated doing nothing all day? While the vampire is enjoying his vampire brides that never ages and will be always loyal to him.

Benito Mussolini — 'It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.'

You brought this up twice, possible more. we arent even talking about a specific rpg game, so not only are you just rehashing an already addressed and countered point but it isnt even a totally relevant point. I'm not even going to ask who orcus is because I dont care, even if youve already told us. its irrelevant. Your argument is mute. all you have accomplished is muddying up a necromancied thread.

I think the advantages of either are pretty easy to see. Going vampire means you gotta be a social animal – you need a regular source of human blood, which necessiates regular contact with the human society in some manner or form, which means you'll spend a major part of your unlife dealing with the practical concerns of that shit and probably won't live more than a century or two before you piss off someone enough to stake you.

As a lich, you have no such concerns. You can just fuck off to some deep dark cave miles below the ground and not see a living soul for several thousand years while devoting 100% of your attention to your magical experiments or whatever else strikes your fancy. You're practically free of any danger unless you decide to stage a powerplay of some sort or something to draw the world's attention, and even if you do, you aren't in some mansion out in the countryside, you're dug in what's basically a nuclear shelter where you can survive practically forever – what better defensive position could one even want? With an added bonus that if they still managed to get you, you respawn (and if you picked and hid your phylactery intelligently, they're never gonna find it).

very few can actually handle solitude, on an intellectual level, without it becoming a problem. I'm not even talking about boredom.

Your sense of perspective warps and eventually erodes into a mess.

 

[Sykar]

Tome4 has necromancers that satisfy all of the OP's requirements aside from NPC interaction.

https://te4.org/wiki/Necromancer

It does have a "conjure shit from nowhere" spell but it is out of the way in an optional tree and just summons bunnies as meatshields you can harvest souls from to fuel your other spells.

The only problem is that it is not easy to unlock and you have to play something else first. Well I guess you can cheat if you want to.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Skyrim mods:
- Ordinator + Apocalypse have extensive support for all archetypes of necromancy, including gathering bones and assembling them.
- A phylactery mod. There was one called simple phylactery or something like that. Just an object you had to craft and then put somewhere safe. Alternatively you can get the Undeath mod if you want lich transformation, but i don't recommend it.
- A lair. Maybe mage's tower, it has a great summoning room.

 

[Sukhāvatī]

 

[Cryomancer]

This necrosmith seems great. Wishlisted it.

Anyway, many people mentioned everquest here and I din't played due "anti mmo bias" but after testing it I fell in love with necromancy in EQ.

1. 4/5 of the world will HATE you and 1/5 be neutral, in many places you will be KoS(kill on sight) and killing in self defense affect reputation with other factions and killing then in self defense often causes negative reputation gain in other factions, leading to even more KoS.
2. You can take control over enemy undead, assume undead form and burn your own lifeforce for mana regen, fear enemies, drain enemy lifeforce among other cool things
3. You can eqquip your pet and him dying is a serious cost. There are lots of spells to buff, protect and even heal your pet.

So far, except by the single pet limit, EQ seems amazing in necromancy department.

 

[Shakebox]

My favorite rendition of necromancy actually comes from an old but still pretty active MUD called Dragonrealms. Their official description:

Necromancer refers to a diverse group of Arcane magic users that utilize a collection of sorceries -- including blood magic, alchemy and the animation of the undead -- to further their evil and selfish goals. They are universally shunned by society and by the gods, being viewed as abominations and monsters that prey on the innocent and sell their souls into damnation for power.

Necromancers are broken into three ideological camps. Player character Necromancers begin by affiliating with the Philosophers of the Knife, which are unique in that they pursue "the Great Work": the use of necromancy to find eternal life. Often they hide themselves in crowds, like wolves among sheep, while others eschew society entirely and rule in the hinterlands. A group of radical holy men, the Hounds of Rutilor, are dedicated to the Philosophers' annihilation, and will hunt down any Necromancer they find openly practicing within their reach.

Necromancers are intended by design to be an advanced option for players who are already familiar with the game and want to try a profession that includes some novel and difficult permutations on the normal play experience.

Mechanically, what's interesting about Necromancers in DR is they're survivalists first, mages second. DR is a skill-based game with skills divided into categories and each guild has primary, secondary and tertiary skills. For necros, their primary skillset is Survival, secondary Magic and Lore, tertiary Weapons, Armor. A necro player has to be careful to not reveal himself as one otherwise he'll face repercussions both from the game and other players (less so the latter these days, since they've further restricted PvP). As you grow in power you have more ways of dealing with this, but as your power grows so too your corruption, to the point that your true identity becomes almost impossible to hide, especially from the gods who have no qualms about striking you down personally. They raise dead through rituals via the Thantalogy skill, first getting access to relatively weak zombies, then a permanent more formidable undead called a Risen (kind of a Frankenstein's monster by my understanding) that they have to harvest body parts for. Lorewise, the Philosophers of the Knife pursue what they call the Great Work, which is essentially eternal life, but their goal isn't to become a lich; it's to challenge the Immortals who are the gods of Elanthia. They're not exactly evil either and they certainly don't view themselves as such. There are 2 other Necromancer camps that I believe are playable now, they're the Redeemed and Perverse. The Redeemed are Necromancers who gave up on the Great Work and pledged to serve the gods. They have unique spells to compensate for the fact that they can't use zombies or risen. The Perverse are your stereotypical evil necros gone mad in their pursuit for power who eventually become liches.

Here's the game's wiki page for necros: https://elanthipedia.play.net/Necromancer

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

Necromancer was pretty fun in Diablo 2.

 

[Rafidur]

Reee! What kind of horrendous fucknugget makes a necromancer mod that can't actually raise the dead?

 

[Sukhāvatī]

Pixelart autobattler.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Also, even if you can live forever, what is teh quality of your life? Never feeling any pleasure again, being isolated doing nothing all day? While the vampire is enjoying his vampire brides that never ages and will be always loyal to him.

Benito Mussolini — 'It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.'

The vampire only immitates these things. Mortal food and drink are like ashes. Undeath kills not only the ability to procreate, but the drive. Undead take no pleasure in the warmth or invigoration of cold. They are numb. Vampires do not grow or change. They go through existence aping life, forced to imitate it in darkness to secure prey. Individually powerful but must exist as glorified rodents, hidden in someone else's civilization. They can never be close to anyone for liability of it. Even siring a vampire is but a mockery of the kin they will never have.

World of Darkness demonstrates this with Cain. Omnipotent but empty. A mere spectator of life. Vampirism is overrated. Hollywood made it into shallow, sexy, superheroes. They are far more interesting as damned predators suffering a Faustian bargain.

 

[Popiel]

I remember that you could be quite versatile with possible builds as a Necro in Guild Wars 1, including a quite fun MM (minion master) build, where you led a small army of various undead monsters around.

 

[Cryomancer]

World of Darkness

This in WoD, but when I was comparing vampires with Liches, I was talking about D&D in particular.

I remember that you could be quite versatile with possible builds as a Necro in Guild Wars 1, including a quite fun MM (minion master) build, where you led a small army of various undead monsters around.

Sadly they decay too quickly...

----------------------------------

Anyway, talking about memorpeguers, here is a list of some mmos with necromancy :

• Guild Wars 1 - Lots of minions, require corpses but they decay too quickly ,also cool epic spells like creating golems and interesting offensive spells like siphon life
• Guild Wars 2 -Honestly, I din't liked much the minions in GW2 but many mmo fans like playing as an necro in this game.
• Shadowbane - I played a bit as a vampire necromancer and liked a bit, you can have a endless swarm of pets but only have control over one of then. Can also charm undead mobs and get then as pets, the offensive skills are mostly unholy blast, a bolt of dark energy and
• Ultima Online - Lots of cool spells. Be able to transform into a vampire or lich which lasts till death, but most spells are not offensive so most necromancers also learn other skills to fight.
• Everquest (classic) : Is the best solo class in the game, having the second best pets, losing only to Magicians which are all about summoned elementals. Can also charm undead to serve as his pets and reanimate skeletons, at high level, specters like Emissary of Thule, sacrifice his own lifeforce for magical power, has the strongest DoTs in the game and good "battlefield control", able to fear, slow enemies, feign dead to escape dangerous encounters, become temporariy immortal and drain lifeforce from enemies. The game is a nightmare till about lv 12 where you have almost no mana and will use mostly melee weapons to fight enemies
• Everquest (live) : SAme as above, but when you get AAs, you get temporary swarm pets and can DIRE charm relative high level enemies. DIRE charms are like charms which never breaks. At raiding, you will be mostly "mana battery' for clerics and wizards. Wake the dead summons an deceased mob to serve you for a little time, swarm of decay summosn 3 skeleton archers to help you.
• Everquest 2 : Similar to EQ1(live), but way more focus on "rotation management" and less situational spells
• Age of Conan : Necromancers have 8 minion points and if they spend points into a skill tree, they can have 11 sacrificing his resistances for more mastery over undeath. Can also do the opposite and sacrifice all pet points for more magical power, essentially transforming the necromancer into an dark cryomancer using mostly cold and unholy magic. Each necromancer pet gets a minion template, so a "minion" of a undead mob is not as deadly as the n ormal undead mob, making the game balanced. Necromancers can drain lifeforce from his minions, sacrifice then for nasty effects lke AoE fear and so on. So far, one of the best necromancies in mmos.
• DDO : Wizards which specializes in the "tree" of Pale Masters gets a tanking skeleton pet which changes the appearance after lv up, they can become undead with a shroud of vampire/lich/zombie/shadow and heal from negative energy and heal his pet, reanimate dead party members as undeads giving the "zombie template" to then and becoming able to heal then among other things. At epic levels when most f2p players stop playing, they can pick magus of the eclipse epic destiny. Lots of OHK spells on failed save or spells which damages enemy attributes and levels
• ESO : ESO enemy necromancers are so cool, but honestly I din't liked player necromancers, they can tank, heal, dps but not be the master of life and death. In fact, sorcerers have greater minion capability than necromancers
• Project Gorgon - Necromancers must be in a graveyard and spend precious reagents to raise the dead and also has other interesting life steal abilities.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

ESO : ESO enemy necromancers are so cool, but honestly I din't liked player necromancers, they can tank, heal, dps but not be the master of life and death. In fact, sorcerers have greater minion capability than necromancers

all of ESO's classes suck because they went with the "bring the player not the class" garbage late-WoW design
why even have classes at that point?

iirc, City of Heroes has necromancy btw.
I believe the server most people play is Homecoming: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/the-city-of-heroes-thread.127202/

 

[Cryomancer]

all of ESO's classes suck because they went with the "bring the player not the class" garbage late-WoW design

Yep. Early EverQuest class design is extremely better than this new class design philosophy, not only from wow but also from GW2 and DA:I.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Cryomancer
https://www.mmorpg.com/news/necroma...new-boss-and-a-ton-of-improvements-2000125608

 

[Cryomancer]

MOrtal Online seems amazing but I don't like this type of game.

One mmo which I'm waiting is Monsters & Memories.

 

[Sukhāvatī]

 

[Cryomancer]

Now an list of some RPGs which I remember with good necromancy :

D&D/Pathfinder games :

• Baldur's Gate 1/2/ToB - Necromancy is a mage specialization. It loses powerful illusion spells but the aditional animate dead and -2 penalty from enemies against finger of death, skull trap and other spells makes necromancers quite good in this game
• Pathfinder Kingmaker - Also an wizard specialization. I did completed the game in the maximum difficulty and have a walktrought here in codex with videos, lots of great spells and great minions, sadly too limited compared to the P&P create undead spells : https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...-thassilonian-necromancer-with-videos.140352/
• NWN1 - Sadly the single summon limit kills one of the main points of necromancy, OHK spells are great in comparation.
• NWN2 - Trash without spell fixes and amazing with spell fixes
• PF:WoTR - Lich mythic path is amazing. I would rather having an vampire mythic path. Being able to reanimate companions to serve you is also a huge plus.
• Low Magic Age - Similar to NWN1 but turn based

First person games :

• Morrowind : There is a huge lore behind necromancy and the player can RP as one with self imposed limitations. There are also mods which improve necromancy and allow multiple undead conjuring with a single spell.
• Might & Magic VI~VIII - Dark Magic is a skill and has some necromancey stuff. In 7/8, is even possible to obtain lichdoom

Open World RPG's

• Gothic 2 Returning - Sadly only sheep of Innos is available in the main game. But the returning 2.0 adds water mages(my favorite) and necromancers. Summons(not only undead summons) require a constant mana upkeep but there is no limit on how many summons you could have. Spear of Darkness is arguably the best circle 3 spell of the game
• Gothic 3 - The unique mass undead summon spell, army of darkness is only available for dark magicians.
• Two Worlds 1 - Necromancy is mostly focused in DoT(damage over time) poison damage and has summon limits
• Two Worlds 2 - You can summon an large horde of undeads with an unique card system
• Arcanum - Arcanum not only allows you to be ridiculous OP with HARM and raise the dead, but also talk with deceased companions
• Black Geyser - I pŕefer wintermage but necromancer have lots of summoning spells and dark magic spells.

MODS :

• Mount & Blade - HAs two main mods with necromancy. Phantasy Calradia and Legacy of the Dragon. Both allow you to have a ridiculous large army of darkness.
• Icewind dale has the pale master mod
• VtMB - ANTITRIBU mod - Has the Giovanni clan which is all about necromancy but I honestly prefer LASOMBRA which uses Nethermancy to summon tentacles of pure darkness
• Diablo + Belzebub mod
• Hexen : Wrath of Chronos >

More mods for necromancy :
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZkSYKr7KRRW02WDYmQYTvDo-2-PSrvna


------------------------------------------------------

Now the HALL OF SHAME. Games with awful necromancy :

• Dragon Age : Inquisition - Is just spirit tree from origins with way less spells. Pure trash!!!
• ESO : NPC necromancers are way more necromancers than PC necromancers. Hell, Sorcerers have more minion capacity and more interesting dark magic than ESO """"necromancers""""
• Diablo 3 - All minions are merely DoTs in disguise. And scale with the size and sharpness of the caster's stat stickie axe