The Tavern

Right now, animate dead and animate skeleton are mostly useless because the undead time out before they can get any value. The solution is to make a certain number, based on spellpower, not time out. If you create more of them than your unit cap, then the oldest undead time out quickly.

Also, allow them to follow you through stairs. I think the stair restriction was put into place to keep people from raising every corpse on a level to take to the next level. But with a unit cap, you would only want to raise a few of the most powerful.

You can get decent value out of the Animate spells by luring everything you kill to a single location and being fast enough that the corpses don't have time to decay. Being able to keep a limited number of derived undead with you as per the OP would lead to gameplay that's both less restrictive and less tedious.

necromancery spells are a joke. It is old stuff and needs to be revisited.

Use Only:
- sublimation (only at 10+ necro skill)
- vampiric Drain (also at level 8-12 u can kill Warlord with only this spell)
- B Vile Clutch get to level 9 earth and necro, and u are ready to set off
- Dispel Unded - 6 necro and is usable!
- necronomutation - 19 necro+ 19 trans
- deaths door - 23 necro

i mean, rest is so bad in comparison. by the time you master other necro spells u realize you do not need them that much.

In my opinion worst spell in entire game is:
- - - - Excruciating Wounds- - - - -
and necro summons ...
and ... who worship kiku to get weapon blessed !!??

this is so old and joke crap

Truth

Some games I'll worship Kiku early on for a few necro spells (mainly vampiric drain) then ditch him, or just to get necromuation, but it's not that often. Switching undead capped to a number that don't expire seems like a good change to me. I'm pretty sure they don't soak up xp like other allies, but that would be my other concern if they do. Overall, they're pretty weak. The days of summoning being overpowered are so long gone, and the axe has fallen too far in the other direction. As for Yred being "special" vs. necro animations, well, having lousy spells to make a god more worthwhile just doesn't seem like a sound choice. It's better to figure out how to make both mechanics worthwhile but not overlapping. Yred is fine anyhow since you can enslave souls and get much better undead than you can with spells.