Best necromancy/skeletons in RPGs

[Cryomancer]

This is a very questionable logic. What exactly can high nobility offer to the magicians that the magicians can't make or take for themselves, if they are powerful enough? And if they are weak, what use is their magic anyway. I mean, in principle, if on any given world, magic is powerful - then there's no chance that world isn't already ruled by mages, whether secretly or overtly. And if magic is weak, or protection from magic is readily available - then it's largely worthless, or at least not nearly enough for any kind of conquest.

Books? And mostly arcane books? Books was rare on medieval times. And using your logic, no mercenary army would ever work for a noble, since they can take the gold of the noble...

Actually, nobility had power because it was the warrior class. A world with magic and mind control would make the warrior class much weaker.

Nobility will have access to arcane arts in most situations where magic is powerful and accessible.

 

[JarlFrank]

In a world where people has access to abilities to mind controll, high nobility OBVIOUSLY will have hired magicians to protect then for it

This is a very questionable logic. What exactly can high nobility offer to the magicians that the magicians can't make or take for themselves, if they are powerful enough? And if they are weak, what use is their magic anyway. I mean, in principle, if on any given world, magic is powerful - then there's no chance that world isn't already ruled by mages, whether secretly or overtly. And if magic is weak, or protection from magic is readily available - then it's largely worthless, or at least not nearly enough for any kind of conquest.

Yeah the one thing that makes no sense in the Forgotten Realms and other similarly high-powered wizardry settings is - why the fuck aren't there more magocracies? If you have the power to annihilate entire armies with clouds of poison, fireballs, meteor showers, and mind control, why do you serve some mundane lord who has no magical powers at all, rather than being a lord yourself?

Old sword and sorcery stories, which didn't even have that powerful magic, did it right: plenty of "evil tyrannic sorceress who uses magical seduction to get everyone to follow her will" and "tyrannic wizard overlord who terrorizes the countryside with his black magic and has an army of soldiers sworn to his side".

And yet in high fantasy, where magic is ten times as powerful as in sword and sorcery, the wizards are usually happy enough organizing in a guild and paying taxes to the king who can't even cast magic missile.

 

[V_K]

Books? And mostly arcane books?

And how does the nobility happen to have them and not the mages in the first place?

Nobility will have access to arcane arts in most situations where magic is powerful and accessible.

It's the other way around - on a world with powerful and accessible magic, muggles would have absolutely zero chance to rise to nobility in the first place. Unless they prefer to keep their existence secret from muggles - which is more or less the scenario I was arguing for, mages as free agents unconstrained by the rules of the muggle world (because where's fun in ruling an empire when you could be busy unraveling the universe?).
There are no scenarios where it makes sense for powerful mages to serve infinitely inferior muggles.

 

[Cryomancer]

Old sword and sorcery stories, which didn't even have that powerful magic, did it right: plenty of "evil tyrannic sorceress who uses magical seduction to get everyone to follow her will" and "tyrannic wizard overlord who terrorizes the countryside with his black magic and has an army of soldiers sworn to his side".

A good example is Conan setting. Most Sorcerers are evil. Like Thoth-Amon. He in D&D therms would be a lv 10 wizard at best. In Gothic is different. Magicians are on very top of social pyramid, only the King and few other high noble man are superior to then. Since magic and religion is linked, fire magicians are loyal to the king because Innos ordered so. And as a servant of Innos, you do as Innos says; Water mages doesn't have the same social benefits and dark mages are outcasts like a satanist would be in a fundamentalist christian society.

It's the other way around - on a world with powerful and accessible magic, muggles would have absolutely zero chance to rise to nobility in the first place. Unless they prefer to keep their existence secret from muggles - which is more or less the scenario I was arguing for, mages as free agents unconstrained by the rules of the muggle world (because where's fun in ruling an empire when you could be busy unraveling the universe?).

That depends. In some magocracies, like on Magnostadt on anime magi, if two non magicians have a magic able children, they got "promoted"

These are the levels of citizenship of Magnostadt.

• 1st Level of Citizenship: All the high level magicians under the Magnostadt Academy’s chancellor. There are currently 500 people in this level.
• 2nd Level of Citizenship: It is extended to all the Magnostadt Academy’s second year students and above and to all the magicians who have the Magnostadt nationality. There are currently 3,000 people in this level.
• 3rd Level of Citizenship: It is extended to all the Gois who have both their parents as magicians, to all the Gois who have some particular technical skills, to those belonging to the army or working for the government. There are currently 20,000 people in this level.
• 4th Level of Citizenship: All the Goi citizens of Magnostadt. There are currently 80,000 people in this level.
• 5th Level of Citizenship: The Goi citizens of Magnostadt who are not able to pay the tax liability. There are currently 200,000 people in this level.

PS : I an not joking. They refear to non magicians as "gois" https://magi.fandom.com/wiki/Magnostadt

 

[V_K]

That depends. In some magocracies, like on Magnostadt on anime magi, if two non magicians have a magic able children, they got "promoted"

These are the levels of citizenship of Magnostadt.

• 1st Level of Citizenship: All the high level magicians under the Magnostadt Academy’s chancellor. There are currently 500 people in this level.
• 2nd Level of Citizenship: It is extended to all the Magnostadt Academy’s second year students and above and to all the magicians who have the Magnostadt nationality. There are currently 3,000 people in this level.
• 3rd Level of Citizenship: It is extended to all the Gois who have both their parents as magicians, to all the Gois who have some particular technical skills, to those belonging to the army or working for the government. There are currently 20,000 people in this level.
• 4th Level of Citizenship: All the Goi citizens of Magnostadt. There are currently 80,000 people in this level.
• 5th Level of Citizenship: The Goi citizens of Magnostadt who are not able to pay the tax liability. There are currently 200,000 people in this level.

I still don't see any level here that would have mages placed below muggles.

 

[Sheepherder]

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.

In my experience, necros built primarily specializing in minions don't scale very well into the lategame. They start off good, but fall off at around lich level (24-ish?).
So a "properly" built necro is more of a mage who deals dark damage and uses a gaggle of minions to keep the baddies away.

 

[Poseidon00]

In a world where people has access to abilities to mind controll, high nobility OBVIOUSLY will have hired magicians to protect then for it

This is a very questionable logic. What exactly can high nobility offer to the magicians that the magicians can't make or take for themselves, if they are powerful enough? And if they are weak, what use is their magic anyway. I mean, in principle, if on any given world, magic is powerful - then there's no chance that world isn't already ruled by mages, whether secretly or overtly. And if magic is weak, or protection from magic is readily available - then it's largely worthless, or at least not nearly enough for any kind of conquest.

Yeah the one thing that makes no sense in the Forgotten Realms and other similarly high-powered wizardry settings is - why the fuck aren't there more magocracies? If you have the power to annihilate entire armies with clouds of poison, fireballs, meteor showers, and mind control, why do you serve some mundane lord who has no magical powers at all, rather than being a lord yourself?

Old sword and sorcery stories, which didn't even have that powerful magic, did it right: plenty of "evil tyrannic sorceress who uses magical seduction to get everyone to follow her will" and "tyrannic wizard overlord who terrorizes the countryside with his black magic and has an army of soldiers sworn to his side".

And yet in high fantasy, where magic is ten times as powerful as in sword and sorcery, the wizards are usually happy enough organizing in a guild and paying taxes to the king who can't even cast magic missile.

To be fair there are more than few mageocracies in the FR world. Besides the Red Wizards and the HostTower there are the Rashemi witches and the theocracies (drow for example) where divine magic rules, but magic nonetheless. Most FR governments have magic users as a fifth column even if the primary government is organized differently, like Ann's merchant societies. Only thing as good as power is money.

I think we see a good bit of the political power real mages would have IMHO

 

[smaug]

I haven’t played AoW3 (yet), but I read that the Necromancer faction is the most diverse and fun in the game.

 

[Cryomancer]

To be fair there are more than few mageocracies in the FR world. Besides the Red Wizards and the HostTower there are the Rashemi witches and the theocracies (drow for example) where divine magic rules, but magic nonetheless. Most FR governments have magic users as a fifth column even if the primary government is organized differently, like Ann's merchant societies. Only thing as good as power is money.

I think we see a good bit of the political power real mages would have IMHO

If D&D magic becomes real now, anyone believe that we will have tons of magocracies? Hell, technology has the power to create Tsar Bombs, far deadlier than any epic spell on D&D and we don't have tons of military dictatorships around the world... Maybe Armageddon on Ultima is deadlier and that is it. Sure, some countries will become a magocracy but a grenade launcher is IMO far deadlier than a fireball.

 

[baud]

To be fair there are more than few mageocracies in the FR world. Besides the Red Wizards and the HostTower there are the Rashemi witches and the theocracies (drow for example) where divine magic rules, but magic nonetheless. Most FR governments have magic users as a fifth column even if the primary government is organized differently, like Ann's merchant societies. Only thing as good as power is money.

I think we see a good bit of the political power real mages would have IMHO

If D&D magic becomes real now, anyone believe that we will have tons of magocracies? Hell, technology has the power to create Tsar Bombs, far deadlier than any epic spell on D&D and we don't have tons of military dictatorships around the world... Maybe Armageddon on Ultima is deadlier and that is it. Sure, some countries will become a magocracy but a grenade launcher is IMO far deadlier than a fireball.

Well, you don't need a decade of training before being able to use a grenade launcher, unlike magic, which is usually depicted as a multi-year endeavor before being able to use big spells.

 

[Cryomancer]

Well, you don't need a decade of training before being able to use a grenade launcher, unlike magic, which is usually depicted as a multi-year endeavor before being able to use big spells.

Yep. Even if D&D magic becomes real(high magical setting), firearms would be deadlier than magic. Not trying to be a weaabo, but Gate anime uses a similar premise. People on other side of the gate was thinking that the "real world" army is a army of high level wizards with strange wands.

Spoiler

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

But one disappointment that i have is that each newer game, necromancy is weaker and more boring. Not only on AAAs. Looks to Piranha Bytes. you can argue that is "conjuring dead", but conjuring dead was much better on the past...

On Gothic 1

on G1 you can have a endless amount of undead

On G2, you can but they costs much more mana and lasts much less time

On G3, only one summon

On Risen, not only one summon limit

On Risen 3, one summon limit and cooldowns...

 

[V_K]

To be fair there are more than few mageocracies in the FR world. Besides the Red Wizards and the HostTower there are the Rashemi witches and the theocracies (drow for example) where divine magic rules, but magic nonetheless. Most FR governments have magic users as a fifth column even if the primary government is organized differently, like Ann's merchant societies. Only thing as good as power is money.

I think we see a good bit of the political power real mages would have IMHO

If D&D magic becomes real now, anyone believe that we will have tons of magocracies? Hell, technology has the power to create Tsar Bombs, far deadlier than any epic spell on D&D and we don't have tons of military dictatorships around the world... Maybe Armageddon on Ultima is deadlier and that is it. Sure, some countries will become a magocracy but a grenade launcher is IMO far deadlier than a fireball.

Thing is, the spell list D&D gives to the player does not correlate very well with how wizards are portrayed in the FR settings - the player's grimoire is far weaker and, for obvious reasons, very lopsided towards combat spells, while other spells have very arbitrary limitations to prevent them from breaking the game. In other words, it's pretty weak the way it's described in the rules. But even within that spell list, there are enough mind control, glamour and other possibilities to easily, say, win an election - and get all the technological firepower you desire.

 

[Damned Registrations]

To be fair there are more than few mageocracies in the FR world. Besides the Red Wizards and the HostTower there are the Rashemi witches and the theocracies (drow for example) where divine magic rules, but magic nonetheless. Most FR governments have magic users as a fifth column even if the primary government is organized differently, like Ann's merchant societies. Only thing as good as power is money.

I think we see a good bit of the political power real mages would have IMHO

If D&D magic becomes real now, anyone believe that we will have tons of magocracies? Hell, technology has the power to create Tsar Bombs, far deadlier than any epic spell on D&D and we don't have tons of military dictatorships around the world... Maybe Armageddon on Ultima is deadlier and that is it. Sure, some countries will become a magocracy but a grenade launcher is IMO far deadlier than a fireball.

Thing is, the spell list D&D gives to the player does not correlate very well with how wizards are portrayed in the FR settings - the player's grimoire is far weaker and, for obvious reasons, very lopsided towards combat spells, while other spells have very arbitrary limitations to prevent them from breaking the game. In other words, it's pretty weak the way it's described in the rules. But even within that spell list, there are enough mind control, glamour and other possibilities to easily, say, win an election - and get all the technological firepower you desire.

Yeah there's no reason you couldn't use both. Invisible flying dudes with guns beat normal dudes with guns. And politics would be utterly under the thumb of magic. Also, the reverse is true: spell components that would be rare for someone in a fantasy setting can be made utterly trivial on a global scale. I would imagine an epic spell with the fantasy equivalent of 10 billion dollars worth of material components could do some bullshit to rival a nuke.

 

[ValeVelKal]

Books? And mostly arcane books?

And how does the nobility happen to have them and not the mages in the first place?

Nobility will have access to arcane arts in most situations where magic is powerful and accessible.

It's the other way around - on a world with powerful and accessible magic, muggles would have absolutely zero chance to rise to nobility in the first place. Unless they prefer to keep their existence secret from muggles - which is more or less the scenario I was arguing for, mages as free agents unconstrained by the rules of the muggle world (because where's fun in ruling an empire when you could be busy unraveling the universe?).
There are no scenarios where it makes sense for powerful mages to serve infinitely inferior muggles.

Magicians needs years of training, and it is not because you are a magician that your sons & daughters will be magicians, so there is no one in your "class" that you can trust.
You are born nobles, and presumably you have allies / families you can rely on.

For all we know the great noble families were started as much by magicians as they were by warriors, but transmission is by blood and so the scions of scions of scions are still rulers, but not magicians. Just like the Queen Elisabeth is not a warrior like her ancestors.

 

[Morroweird]

In Arcanum you can conjure spirits of the dead and talk to them, mostly it does little but in some cases you can learn valuable informations. I also like how people react with fear and disgust to your summoned undead.

I wish more games allow playing with spellcasters in RPGs to have unique ways to interact with the world and solve quests instead of just being range damage dealers.

Yeah, Arcanum had a mix of good and bad in the Necromancy skill tree.
The root was 'Deal harm', which was pure ranged damage which worked on everything up to the final boss (maybe excepting some constructs). One of the infamously inbalanced aspects of the game.
But aside from the spirit conjuring that you mention there was also a generic 'Raise Dead' type of deal, which worked on almost everything. It was quite fun to raise up a unique 'Crawling Horror' giant spider type in one of the dungeons and use it to clear out the place. And there was a balancing element too - if I recall this correctly - if you ran out of mana while the undead was raised you went unconcious and they broke free from under your control, while retaining their undead state - leaving you in quite a pickle

 

[V_K]

Books? And mostly arcane books?

And how does the nobility happen to have them and not the mages in the first place?

Nobility will have access to arcane arts in most situations where magic is powerful and accessible.

It's the other way around - on a world with powerful and accessible magic, muggles would have absolutely zero chance to rise to nobility in the first place. Unless they prefer to keep their existence secret from muggles - which is more or less the scenario I was arguing for, mages as free agents unconstrained by the rules of the muggle world (because where's fun in ruling an empire when you could be busy unraveling the universe?).
There are no scenarios where it makes sense for powerful mages to serve infinitely inferior muggles.

Magicians needs years of training, and it is not because you are a magician that your sons & daughters will be magicians, so there is no one in your "class" that you can trust.
You are born nobles, and presumably you have allies / families you can rely on.

For all we know the great noble families were started as much by magicians as they were by warriors, but transmission is by blood and so the scions of scions of scions are still rulers, but not magicians. Just like the Queen Elisabeth is not a warrior like her ancestors.

Just like women were not considered heirs in regular medieval nobility, muggle offspring would not be heirs in a magocracy. Provided magic abilities are inborn and non-hereditary, neither of which is a given. In a situation where magic is hereditary, mage bloodlines would become nobility by default. And in a situation where magic is learned rather than born with, it would necessarily become part of any noble's education.

 

[JarlFrank]

Yep. Even if D&D magic becomes real(high magical setting), firearms would be deadlier than magic.

This is kinda the same story as why knights got replaced by massive armies of musket-equipped footmen.

 

[Delterius]

Yep. Even if D&D magic becomes real(high magical setting), firearms would be deadlier than magic.

This is kinda the same story as why knights got replaced by massive armies of musket-equipped footmen.

You're both missing the point. If D&D magic becomes real, then firearms are going to shoot magic missiles while artillery fire conjures meteor showers.

The inevitable industrialization of readily available high fantasy magic is what is decline.

 

[Inehresa]

How is power enforced in DnD setting tho? I mean the answer to apparent relative absence of magocracies may lay in the way how FR politics works - ie in western world societies run by tandem of financial elite/large scale producers and professional politicians weren't really a thing up until the commodification of land, erosion of regal monetary power and evolution of societal power structures themselves (ruling on life and death being replaced by disciplinary model). Magocracies could be simply ineffective in a fantasy world which is esthetically based on western medieval ages yet societally more akin to the creator's own surroundings - as mentioned above magic takes years to master and its value is transferable only via training thus rendering magocratic hierarchies more stagnant (if you think about it, magocractic hierarchy would be similar to middle and lower class hierarchies irl, where training and building your position takes years, the lower you start the harder the process is) and vulnerable to crises and foreign interventions. In contrast, power of pseudofeudal or mercantilic govts lies in their ability to not only administer easily transferrable tools such as wealth and raw military force but the way how their societies are constructed around them, ensuring relative political stability. As a sidenote I'd like to point out that in this framework, powerful magic users (likes of Nagash or Sauron) are analogs of irl technological/market revolutions as their actions tend to be easily incorporated into the fabric of respective universe's politics in the long run, despite the apparent severity of immediate consequences. We fantasize about societies.

 

[Storyfag]

Books? And mostly arcane books?

And how does the nobility happen to have them and not the mages in the first place?

Nobility will have access to arcane arts in most situations where magic is powerful and accessible.

It's the other way around - on a world with powerful and accessible magic, muggles would have absolutely zero chance to rise to nobility in the first place. Unless they prefer to keep their existence secret from muggles - which is more or less the scenario I was arguing for, mages as free agents unconstrained by the rules of the muggle world (because where's fun in ruling an empire when you could be busy unraveling the universe?).
There are no scenarios where it makes sense for powerful mages to serve infinitely inferior muggles.

Magicians needs years of training, and it is not because you are a magician that your sons & daughters will be magicians, so there is no one in your "class" that you can trust.
You are born nobles, and presumably you have allies / families you can rely on.

For all we know the great noble families were started as much by magicians as they were by warriors, but transmission is by blood and so the scions of scions of scions are still rulers, but not magicians. Just like the Queen Elisabeth is not a warrior like her ancestors.

Just like women were not considered heirs in regular medieval nobility, muggle offspring would not be heirs in a magocracy. Provided magic abilities are inborn and non-hereditary, neither of which is a given. In a situation where magic is hereditary, mage bloodlines would become nobility by default. And in a situation where magic is learned rather than born with, it would necessarily become part of any noble's education.

What if magical talent is not hereditary but still has to be there for any education in the field to even make sense?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Didn't Hellgate London have a type of bone magic for the technomancers-like characters?

 

[Poseidon00]

Mages can live practically forever using a number of different methods, giving them plenty of time to embed themselves within political organizations. Technology can provide greater explosive power, easier, but mages are able to operate longer, and with more subtlety, than technology can provide even at this time. The prerequisite for wizards is intelligence, sorcerers charisma, both are valid in politics. Everything about mages screams kingpin political players.

 

[Cryomancer]

Yeah there's no reason you couldn't use both. Invisible flying dudes with guns beat normal dudes with guns. And politics would be utterly under the thumb of magic. Also, the reverse is true: spell components that would be rare for someone in a fantasy setting can be made utterly trivial on a global scale. I would imagine an epic spell with the fantasy equivalent of 10 billion dollars worth of material components could do some bullshit to rival a nuke.

No, but the army would develop a "anti arcane warfare" doctrine, using thermal scopes and dogs to fight invisible enemies for eg. But i was talking about offensive capabilities. Of course defensive spells, control, conjuring, etc would be far more important than anything else. They will have magicians casting detect magic everywhere. The judicial system with "detect lies" would be heavily impacted... Is like the introduction of airplane. Before it, there was no reason to develop anti air tactics, weaponry and doctrines. After it has a need.

. But even within that spell list, there are enough mind control, glamour and other possibilities to easily, say, win an election - and get all the technological firepower you desire.

Yep. This spells will be far more deadly than a fireball. BUT glamour is not something that only you can use. And there are counters for most mind affecting spells.

 

[Delterius]

Magocracies could be simply ineffective in a fantasy world

Not at all. One thing that Forgotten Realms and Golarion have in common is that the modern world is the fallout of a global imperial magocracy. Netheril in one, Azlant is the other. Those empires rose as they made the price of magic cheaper: true, it takes years for one to become an Archmage. But not only are those guys immortal demigods of destruction, they set up mega factories of cheap arcane goods that mirror the industrial world. The only reason Netheril fell is because of gm fiat of magic attracting magic eaters. With Azlant it is their cthullean masters causing a meteor apocalypse out of spite.

Therein lies the problem: a world where magic is devoid of all mystery, where it is just a fantastic rendering of stemlordism then someone is bound to engineer a magitech age at some point. That kingdoms can rise and fall for tens of thousands of years without anything like it just feels like stretching.

 

[thesecret1]

It is extended to all the Gois

oy vey