Necromant Concept Class--CW Edition

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Necromant Concept Class--CW Edition

Postby Miles » Wed Oct 19, 2011 11:41 am

As many of you have seen, I've been continuing to playtest a concept class of mine--"Necromant"--on the CW fields intermittently for some time now. It's been a blast, and I'm glad all of you humor me in letting me work on it--it's come a long way since its conception in Siar Geata, and certainly would not have without the feedback from many of you after seeing it in action.
For your reference, review, and thoughts, I will attach here the class' listing and abilities. This post will be periodically updated with any version changes that occur; the second post will list some analyses of the first version's abilities and explanations of their intent and balancing considerations, to help spark discussion.

Also attached, mostly for your entertainment, is my old Apothecary concept class. It has not been played in years, but is sort of a less-white-magic Healer with lots of medical and chemistry flavors. You are welcome to discuss it if you like, but I do not currently have plans to revive (defibrillate?) it unless the land requests it.

Thank you.

Version History
v1.0: Compact-font size posted (10/19/11)
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Re: Necromant Concept Class--CW Edition

Postby Miles » Wed Oct 19, 2011 12:50 pm

Some thoughts on the abilities in Version 1.0 (CW):

Venom Bolt
Stick's feedback that a poisoned Magic Bolt was a little beefy for a first-level character was definitely reasonable, so Necromant begins with access to Magic Bolt. However, the dynamic was itself not ridiculously potent, so rather than making the old spell obsolete or doing away with it entirely, Necromant now gains the ability to infuse poison into its purchased Magic Bolts at 2nd level, resulting in the Venom Bolts you may have already seen. This is still less powerful than Lightning Bolt, which Wizards gain at 2nd level.

Bloodletting
Necromant previously had the ability to expel ailments in a variety of ways, but none seemed like a good balance of power for the levels at which they were accessed; Blackthorn commented on this and asked why they couldn't simply have Cure Ailments. However, a class focused on death and disease doesn't have much business using strictly curative magic, so I borrowed Bloodletting from Apothecary--a skill which was quite reasonable on playtesting that class. It also makes more flavorful sense--curing by suffering, rather than simply vanishing ailments.

Stolen Bones
This Barkskin-like ability can be cast on self without penalties for future magic-casting. While this may seem substantial on first glance, the caster will lose all protection if touched by a Healer, necessitating that the Necromant either seek help from other teammates who have limited access to Heal, or, more intentionally, relying on his Fleshweaving ability in the event that he is injured. This represents the "corrupted" nature of the class, relying on necromancy, rather than white magic, to bolster strength and undo damage.

Shared Suffering/Steal Vigor
Necromant previously had Wounding in addition to these two spells. Wounding is, however, pretty potent business, and with three spells that functioned more or less as per Wounding, Necromant felt like a one-trick pony. Instead, Wounding per se was removed. Shared Suffering is Wounding's weaker cousin, in that the caster suffers the same wound, while Steal Vigor is stronger than either, allowing healing of the same limb the caster wounded on the victim. The two were designed to have synergy: use Shared Suffering on one player, then Steal Vigor on another to get the limb back. The Lifeblood skill was included partially to maximize the benefit of this: if the caster couldn't swap wounded limbs, the skill would be less strategically useful.

Reaper's Defense
This Enchantment, symbolic of the inevitability of death and no man's true control over it, primarily only remains in the game as a counter to Wounding, Finger, and Touch of Death, as Killing Grounds, Mutual Destruction, and Doomsday rarely see use. Necromant was designed in such a way that Necromants are some of their own worst enemies, and with two spells like Wounding in their arsenal, Reaper's Defense was a potent counter-assault. Rather than giving the class eventual immunity to Death, the ability to self-cast this Enchantment without losing it to future spells was given to the class as a sort of demi-immunity--at the cost of forgoing other protections, such as Stolen Bones.

Evil Eye
As all casters have access to something that strips players of their equipment, Evil Eye was added as a unique means of removing shields specifically, as opposed to spells that either neutralize a weapon (e.g. Heat Weapon, Swords to Plowshares) or can destroy multiple sorts of item (e.g. Warp Wood, destructive ball magic). It also exists as a workaround for Hardened/Imbued shields--they're still intact; ya just can't use 'em!

Corpse Puppet
Though initially a weird flavor of Reanimate, in which the reanimated player was loaned a spell and given a target, and would drop dead after casting that spell on the target--allowing portability of either beneficial spells to allies or destructive ones to foes--the wording was complicated and fraught with technicalities, so it was changed to a Possession-like effect. If the puppet is killed by "conventional" means (e.g. weapons), the caster returns to base before returning to the game, but dispelling it directly makes the caster vulnerable to attack immediately, requiring careful tactical use and infusing a risk/reward quotient into the ability.

Plunder Spirit
As Druid and Wizard get Vivify, and Healer makes up for its life count with defensive abilities and Resurrects (like Reanimate, only better 'cause it's permanent), and Bards just have to lump it, Plunder Spirit is a high-risk/high-reward kill spell that gives the caster an "extra life" or can Resurrect fallen teammates akin to Transfer Life. Unlike FoD, which is basically hate-mail from 50-100 feet away, Plunder Spirit is a 20-foot kill spell that requires careful timing and use. The kill is as guaranteed as any 20-foot spell, but the Resurrect effect is a self-cast Enchantment, requiring the caster to 1) not already be Enchanted, and 2) not cast magic until the Resurrection effect can be deployed. This makes the Necromant quite vulnerable, but quite tactically valuable, during this time. While Steal Life had been suggested as an alternative, it is the special-snowflake ability of Anti-Paladins, and thus was not generally well-received.
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