The Necromancer and his spells

[aaronthecow]

Just thinking...
It would kinda attract the attention a bit of the local fertility deities if suddenly a fertile valley started withering away.

Whitch is why it is a tricky spell to cast unless you are fine with Gaia telling the local greek heros that somone (who is high level and has lots of tresure) is doing a evil act and needs to be stoped, she then tells them to take his blood put it on the land, and cast dispell magic, tells abunch of people to get togerher and cast dispel magic with combine and dispell magic to do it, or tells Hecate's or her witches to make a voodoo dall with a pice of earth from the land and mess with him.

You might want to incude that the gods are notified of when you do this or some other way to make it easy for a bunch of heros to find out what you are doing.

[Van]

I like Rachel's idea of making the spell components less accessible. I also agree that the 1-3 hp deduction is a bit light, considering the possibly permanent destruction the necromancer is calling down on the land. I understand that it's certainly not an irreversible act, but I think it's the necromancer's intent for it to be permanent that's important to consider. For such evil, much more should be required of him/her. So here's my suggestion: Make the blood (hit point) "sacrifice" equal to one (maybe two?) hp per square mile affected (rounded up) PLUS 1-3 hp (this should probably be a fixed number). Only the 1-3 hp is permanent, however. The rest can ONLY be regained through the body's normal healing process (not even first aid). Otherwise, the spell fails for as many square miles as hp (or one square mile for every two, depending on how many you decide the initial sacrifice required) healed through first aid, magical or psionic healing . I think this will serve a number of purposes:
1. Tends to restrict the area the necromancer would attempt to afflict.
2. Discourages frequent use of the spell because of having to heal the sacrificial hp naturally.
3. Emphasizes his/her new connection to the land just blighted.

[Van]

Also, to Aaron and Rachel's point about the earth/fertility gods' interest in what the necromancer is doing . . . I'm not so sure that would be a huge consideration, but then again, I don't claim to know how the gods work in David's multiverse. But consider this . . . the blight spell can only affect up to one square mile per level of the caster. To use David's earlier example of Manhattan, it would take a necromancer of at least 23rd level to blight an island that size. Now, that may seem humongous to us, but I used to live in New York City. I could walk across the island (east-west) in about an hour, going at a more or less leisurely pace. And if you look on a map of the country, it's mighty small-looking indeed.

I figure the gods are probably "big picture" types, and though they wouldn't exactly like the idea of a mere mortal tampering with the natural order, I don't see them jumping all over it either. After all, look at all the evil that goes on in David's world without eliciting involvement by the gods. The Temple of Elemental Evil comes to mind. Now, if there was some special significance to the area so affected, that would be a different story. And if blight is a spell with severe personal consequences for the caster, we can be pretty sure that there won't be an epidemic of blighters running lose on Oerth (or any world) anytime soon.

On top of that, what are the chances that an area larger than about 15 square miles would be affected? The highest level character on Oerth that I can recall isn't even that high. I could be wrong. But I imagine that necromancers would be trying out this spell at 12th level (or whatever it is on their progression table) when they first get access to 6th level spells. And even at that level, they probably are still loathe to give up any of their precious few hp permanently and/or have to wait to heal additional hp naturally (if David goes with my suggestion). So I expect that the areas of effect will probably end up being limited to several square miles, for the most part--not much to rouse most gods.

Whaddaya think?

[Eric]

I would have to agree with Van on the gods issue. The gods might care but they might not. That would be the DM's world issue. At the time or mabey after the set in has started the DM would have to decide if the gods got upset about it. This would not really be in a spell desription forceing a DM to take action, that should be the DM's choice.

As for the spell I thought about it last night and I really like the idea of perm lost HP's. There should be reasons why the necro can't just pull it down when someone or something gets in there way. He needs to WANT/HAVE to cast it.

If it's just a town that upset him then he can make a small army of undead and rampage through the town.

[Rachel]

My random thinking about fertility deities taking notice was just that. I agree that the DM should decide if/how the gods react.

[David]

Howdy guys!

Thank you SOOO much for all the thought you guys have put into this...! I sooOOoooOOOoo appreciate it!

So, I submitted the final manuscript and moved the spell up to 7th level at everyone's suggestions. I liked it as 6th, but I think that may have influenced me overly much. I added fetus to the components as well as raised the hp loss to 1d3 and made it "persistent" that is, it lasted until the effects became permanent. As someone who plays mages, I think that is enough of a penalty to prevent the spell being cast at ALL casually...! Evil people aren't liable to make themselves feeble without a great reason.

The gods would generally NOT get offended for the use of a blight as it affects a small area (for what it's worth, a 23rd lvl caster could only get the borough of Manhatten, not even the whole island). But any worshippers are liable to offer prayers to the gods for help...which sooner or later means someone is goona get quested to put it right... Not to mention, frequent use could tick off Ehlonna or Gaea or Ishtar or Demeter or Idunn or Osiris or Xipe Totec, etc.

[Eric]

Well good luck on getting it in. Its a good class.

[David]

The final Necromancer has been published. Check it out at www.geocities.com/buddhabear_sj/gaming/classes.html

[aaronthecow]

2 nitpicks

[nitpick]
in body recker, you don't specifi that the target dies if they fail there save on the last one

in goul gantlent, on page 22, you say hit pins instead of hit points
[/nitpick]

[David]

Howdy Aaron,

Now why weren't YOU my editor...?

In the first case, I think it's implied well enough that you die if your guts explode in a 3' radius. In the second case, good catch -- I've updated my version and will post the update to the website.

[Jeff]

He wasn't the editor because he can't spell "necrosis". Or wrecker, apparantly.

Anyways, looks good. Also, I like Dark Lightning. Heh, if only Mom would let me play Evil characters...

[David]

Well, I DEFINITELY agree with your mother...no evil characters until you're an adult. Not to mention, in any mature gaming environment, they're VERY hard to keep alive because people won't trust 'em.

As for necromancers, please remember, they can be of ANY alignment. Sure, there are a few "nasty" spells, but the rest -- including darklightning -- are fair game for casters of all alignments...with the right mindset...