Necromancy changed to warmage background

[khalil]

Necromancy is a rather nice spell school, but most of the time the only races who choose the necromancer background are Deep Dwarves and Mummies.
This is because their starting spell, pain, does one hit point of damage to you every time you cast it. Thus, when someone of another race decides to be a necromancer, they have to franticly scrabble for a weapon and hope nothing big attacks before they get one.
My sugestion is that:
A: Necromancy is classified as a warmage background.
B: Necromancers start with leather armor and a +0 weapon of their choice.
C: Instead of getting two points in dodging and two points in stealth, they get two points in their weapon skill, one point in fighting, and one point in either dodging or armor depending on which aptitude is higher.
D: They start with create skeleton memorized instead of pain.
Do note that this proposal does not involve removing pain from the starting spellbook.
I belive this change will open up the necromancer background to several more races, while not signifigantly altering the game's balance.
If enough people think it's a good idea, I'll go code it up.
Anyway, what do you think?

[twelwe]

We don't vote out or vote in proposals, you might as well code it up and see how it works. Pain is a great spell, dealing lots of damage at a small cost to the caster, and doesn't miss; the concept is that you're less likely to be hit by a monster that you are heavily damaging. Besides, the necromancer gets healing abilities to compensate. "Warmage" does not convey the properties of the background as well as "necromancer" does. I know what I can expect with an Ice Elementalist, a Gladiator, etc.

[BlackSheep]

I think your base premise is incorrect, and that the rest of your proposal rests on that.

[adozu]

it would kind of overlap with death knight as a starting background however in that form.

i mean: they would both have a weapon and leather armor + zombie/skeleton reanimation. except one has a god the other a book.

[twelwe]

necromancer is about as much of a warrior-mage background as ice elementalist is

and green is about as much of a yellow as orange is. whats your point?

[Lasty]

Necromancy is a rather nice spell school, but most of the time the only races who choose the necromancer background are Deep Dwarves and Mummies.

I think you'll find that few people agree with this. Necromancers of all races are quite good.

[rebthor]

necromancer is about as much of a warrior-mage background as ice elementalist is

Let's rename them as BattleMage. Then when people ask what the difference is between BattleMage and WarMage we can tell them, "Well they used to be called Ice Elementalist and Necromancer but that was too confusing."

[Davion Fuxa]

While Starting Necromancers are probably inclined to picking up Melee abilities due to the synergy found with its starting book, a player can still go through the game training nothing but Necromancy and using it to kill things with Pain and Vampiric Draining before pushing on with the likes of Dispel Undead or Bolt of Draining and diversifying their spell use to include other spell categories to do direct damage. The background is definitely not restricted to just Deep Dwarves and Mummies either; Pain doesn't hurt a character enough to limit the background choice to just species that ignore the damage.

That said, compared to other spell schools: Necromancy don't have a whole lot of spells that can be used to directly damage enemies and many other spell schools don't face the restrictions Necromancer's will have to in regards to Negative Energy Resistances (and in the case of Pain, Magic Resistance). They aren't Summoners that can rely on making minions pop up to deal with things when it comes to raising the dead either - a corpse has to be on hand before they can start making their army and raised undead won't follow them between levels when they leave either.

The idea has merit - regardless of how the poster came about coming up with the idea. Here's an idea though of how I think the setup might look then for a Necromancer Warrior/Mage setup - which tries to keep them as close to the spellcaster roots as possible but let's them initially start with something on hand:

  Code:

+1 Chosen Weapon (hand axe, spear, short sword, mace, staff)
+0 robe
Book of Necromancy
Bread ration
20 gold

1 Fighting
1 Chosen Weapon's Skill
2 Dodging
1 Stealth
1 Spellcasting
4 Necromancy

[WalkerBoh]

Nowhere did he suggest we change the name from "Necromancer" to "War Mage". He was just suggesting we make it more of a warrior mage background (grouped with skald, warper, etc on the starting menu), rather than being a "pure" caster class.

I agree that necromancers are a good background for hybrid chars, and I can see the rationale for grouping them in that way. I disagree about starting with animate skeleton instead of pain, but would be interested to see how the proposed changes work. IMO code it and see how it plays.

[siprus]

Hmm i guess having necro mancers start with points in Melee weapon and melee weapon could be nice change. But don't change pain to animate skeleton, pain is awsome spell and you get new spells fast enough anyway. I personally rarely use animate skeleton at all, while pain is useful through game.

Anyway wouldn't it make more sense to call skald battle-mage. than neromancer.

[BlackSheep]

He's not suggesting the spells change. He's suggesting that they start with animate skeleton memorized instead of pain, even though this has zero impact on the background. Leather armor is also a bad idea, as that will make their allegedly bad starting damage spell even worse.

So basically the only thing this would add to the class is a starting weapon and some skill to use it. And this will supposedly "open up" the background to races other than mummies and deep dwarves.

[Lafaros]

I really don't see the problem here, I'm afraid. The very small damage pain does to the caster is irrelevant after D:1 or so. All the spells are Necromancy-related so Necromancer is a pretty clear title. And a lot of them have pretty clear synergies with melee combat - Lethal Infusion and Vampiric Draining in particular. In fact, I probably wouldn't start as a mummy necromancer since mummies miss out on a lot of the really good Necromancy spells, like Regeneration and Revivification. I think it's fine as-is.

[Lasty]

Also worth noting: Necromancers can memorize both Animate Dead and Pain before taking a single step in the dungeon, so switching which one is the first one memorized is irrelevant. If anything, I would change it to start w/ both memorized. Of course, that actually reduces the player's options, so I wouldn't recommend it.

[roctavian]

Rename conjuror "battlespheremage" and we're good

[cerebovssquire]

ashenzari worshippers get default title SOOTHSLAYER

[WalkerBoh]

@minmay: I don't really understand how slightly tweaking starting skills and adding a starting weapon turns Necromancer from a good background to "so terrible it was removed"... Are you sure old death knight wasn't bad for other reasons?

[khalil]

Just to clear things up.
I did not want it to be renamed.

Nowhere did he suggest we change the name from "Necromancer" to "War Mage". He was just suggesting we make it more of a warrior mage background (grouped with skald, warper, etc on the starting menu), rather than being a "pure" caster class.

This guy's got it right.

it would kind of overlap with death knight as a starting background however in that form.

i mean: they would both have a weapon and leather armor + zombie/skeleton reanimation. except one has a god the other a book.

This is a rather good point. Perhaps going with Davion Fuxa's idea would work. I'll try it out, see how it plays.

I think your base premise is incorrect, and that the rest of your proposal rests on that.

I dunno, maybe I just suck at this game.

i meant awful and sucky in a design sense mainly (it happened to be sort of weak too, and to answer your question there is a difference: it had no MP or stats, but if necromancer were moved to warrior-mage then it would presumably get warrior-mage MP and stats)

(ok enchanter doesnt get warrior-mage MP and stats but thats because enchanter probably shouldnt be in warrior-mage (background categories probably shouldn't exist))

Background categories are there to make things easier for newbies. The original class selection screen was a big turn off. Also, I don't recall suggesting that we change the stats.

[crate]

  Code:

<Sequell> crate (ne) has won 15 times in 43 games (34.88%): 1xDDNe 1xDgNe 1xDrNe 1xDsNe 1xGhNe 1xHONe 1xHaNe 1xHuNe 1xKoNe 1xMiNe 1xNaNe 1xOpNe 1xSENe 1xTeNe 1xTrNe

look at all those deep dwarves and mummies

[some12fat2move]

(ok enchanter doesnt get warrior-mage MP and stats but thats because enchanter probably shouldnt be in warrior-mage (background categories probably shouldn't exist))

Presumably enchanter is in the warrior-mage category because playing one without using physical attacks would be a disaster, which is not the case for the classes in the mage category (they would be gimped but not disastrously so).

Also, I don't recall suggesting that we change the stats.

if it doesnt have warrior-mage mp and stats why should it be in warrior-mage?????

Khalil is suggesting the move on the grounds that playing a necromancer without using physical attacks would be a disaster and therefore it should be classified as warrior-mage rather than mage. Whether this is true or not I can't say (I don't often play it because I dislike dealing with permanent allies).

[WalkerBoh]

I certainly think of necromancy more as a support spell school than an offensive spell school. The most regularly useful necromancy spells for me are things like regen, DD, Borg, lichform. Outside of early pain/vamp drain I can't think of many games where I used any necromantic spells as a main form of attack. In that sense it reminds me more of a skald in playstyle than an FE or EE, and so the warrior-mage image fits for me.

I don't see why stats would have to change, just a re-tooling of starting skills to better reflect the hybrid playstyle the necromancer background already lends itself to. I think that's where khalil was going, and I personally see nothing wrong with coding a version and testing it.

[WalkerBoh]

Except not at all.

[some12fat2move]

ok here is another background that is more warrior-mage than Ne by this line of thought: Wz

Wizard sans physical attacks is very doable

[Davion Fuxa]

so is Ne sans physical attacks

in fact i would go so far as to say vampiric draining is better than magic dart is

I don't know, I think someone is going to clonk you over the head for doubting the power that is Conjure Flame.

[WalkerBoh]

It's more that starting wiz spells give an early start on spell schools that are good for offense (fire, air, conj), in addition to being nice support spells. Necromancy provides charms.

[BlackSheep]

There's still no actual problem to fix.

[Davion Fuxa]

There's still no actual problem to fix.

Technically I don't think there needs to be a problem to fix and certainly don't think a problem needs to exist to warrant a change in the game. A question here is what would changing the starting properties of Necromancer's to be more oriented to be Fighter/Mages do? Would the playstyle orientation change encourage players to try the background more or improve gameplay for those who use it now? Would the reverse occur?

I personally don't think changing the Necromancer to be more Fighter/Mage oriented myself would be a bad change; I actually see positive outcomes since it lets you begin training with a specific weapon if you are allowed to choose what you will start with (more decision making and something to use Lethal Infusion on. Thematically this sort of change would fit with the Necromancer since they are so strongly oriented to Physical Combat and because while Necromancy isn't fully a Supportive Branch of Magic like Hexes, Charms, Transmutations, or Translocations; it doesn't have near as many offensive spells.

This is in contrast to say Wizard, Ice Elementalist, or any of the other Mage Backgrounds as well. Yes you can Hybridize those backgrounds, but what about the reverse? Wizards or Ice Elementalists have little to no problem just playing as Full-Mages that do nothing but train Conjurations or Ice Magic (and Summoning and other related Spell Schools) until they pick up New Books with spells or what not. A Necromancy however has a lot more difficulty playing as a Full-Mage because a lot of enemies resist Negative Energy and since unlike Summoners they need to have corpses readily available before they can form their undead Armies every time they enter a level.

[BlackSheep]

The same enemies with rN also have rC and rP, so I don't see enemy resistance as a factor in differentiating necromancers from other casters. Unlike summoners, necromancers have one magic school to train for both damage and summons (...and healing, and once they hit level 4, dealing with enemy undead). The background starts with a very, very good book, and because it's focused on one class, the starting magic skill is higher than that of the elementalists. Weapons appear in abundance on the floor. Necromancers don't need a starting weapon.

[pratamawirya]

tl;dr just because a background favors melee training doesn't mean it should start with a weapon

[danharaj]

Literally every background is good with a character that picks up an early weapon and trains it.

[Davion Fuxa]

I'm sure reasons could be argued back and forth both for making them Fighter/Mage Oriented or not - but really I think the question is whether it would be an improvement to make players want to play Necromancer's more that don't, make it play easier for players or have a hard time with the background, or whether there is something bad with the idea of making the change to a different orientation.

Personally I would like the changes and might play Necromancer's more if it happened, while I don't see a whole lot negative from such a change occurring.

[crate]

well it would make necromancer worse since you don't want to train a weapon really early on, so there is that

[mikee]

How about a background that's like a conjurer but it gets less mp and spell skill and a bit of fighting/weapon skill? It can start with leather armour and a short sword. Let's also implement a new species, the hill dwarf, which can take advantage of the starting melee skills.

[nordetsa]

How about a background that's like a conjurer but it gets less mp and spell skill and a bit of fighting/weapon skill? It can start with leather armour and a short sword. Let's also implement a new species, the hill dwarf, which can take advantage of the starting melee skills.

That sounds like reaver. Wasn't that class around in older versions of crawl?

[nicolae]

How about a background that's like a conjurer but it gets less mp and spell skill and a bit of fighting/weapon skill? It can start with leather armour and a short sword. Let's also implement a new species, the hill dwarf, which can take advantage of the starting melee skills.

That sounds like reaver. Wasn't that class around in older versions of crawl?

Spoiler: show

i think that was the joke

[cjo]

This is a trifle off topic for GDD, but relevant to the OP's concerns, so what the heck...

Prior to this post, I'd been on an ogre necromancer kick, and had a grand time with learning just a little necromancy, then shifting over to training M&F up to fairly high levels, often with Ash as deity. Draining-branded giant spiked club was awesome, and animated skeletons gave both extra offense and a good way to retreat.

This thread inspired me to switch over to deep elf. I did not have any issues with early game power. I say this as a less-than-stellar player, and I died twice to my usual dumb mistakes before getting #3 to the lair. Early on, I killed nearly everything with pain, and let my skeletons mob extra-hard stuff, and ran away from a few especially hard encounters. Early undead were not an issue because either they're weak and can be mobbed by skeletons, or they're slow and can be easily run away from. By the time you get anything that's both fast and dangerous, you can have control undead online. This can be used defensively (control something, then tell it to stay put, then run away). I picked up a weapon early on, switched it for Pikel's whip later, but by lair I had only ever used it to poke at wussy stuff. Even that was rare.

My spell picks in order were: animate skeleton, vampiric draining, regeneration, control undead, and animate undead. I skipped lethal infusion b/c I so rarely hit things. I had a branded weapon (Pike's flaming whip) by the time I would have memorized it.

I repeat that I'm not actually the best of players, so I wouldn't say it's exclusively about skill... maybe more about being willing to experiment with different play styles? Starting with a weapon would have been fine for my ogre necromancers, but awful for my deep elves. Anyway, for anyone who thinks that necromancy is bad for low hp characters, try giving it another go.

[ebarrett]

There's still no actual problem to fix.

I don't think there needs to be a problem to fix

So, GDD, you show your true form

[khalil]

Also, I don't recall suggesting that we change the stats.

if it doesnt have warrior-mage mp and stats why should it be in warrior-mage?????

Why would enchanters be? Because they start with a weapon.
However, the point is rather moot. Tried it out and it was too much like death knight. Plus, it seems what I was trying to fix is a problem only I have. Either way, you seem to have been right.

[battaile]

There's still no actual problem to fix.

I don't think there needs to be a problem to fix

So, GDD, you show your true form

Its a koan.