An appeal to necromancers

xLegionx

Since this is enhanced edition we all know we are getting some new stuff to play with. With the current Baldur's gate it was very hard to play as a "true necromancer" because there were so few spells that could be used for a necromancer. With my current necromancer, I was really focusing primarily on conjuration spells because there were only like 2-3 spells in each spell level to choose from for a necromancer. So I was hoping if maybe we will be getting more spells as a necromancer so that we can fully put forth our efforts to play as a full-fledged necromancer and not have to leak in so many spells from other schools to make up for the lack of necromantic spells.

superpyro

It has been so long since I have played the game. I don't remember the specifics but I do remember that being the issue. there was no where close the the number of spells in Balders gate 2.

CrazedSlayer

I agree, and I think the same goes for all specialized classes for mage. Correct me if im wrong, but being a specialized mage doesn't give you access to any additional spells does it? Not having access to an entire section of spells is a big vice, so maybe having more restricted spells for those classes of mage wouldn't be a bad thing.

Luge

Being a Necromancer just gets you one additional spell (of any kind) per level, and restricts you from the opposite school.

You do realise that Aid, Cure Wounds, Restoration and a whole variety of other useful spells are Necromancy, right? Death magic isn't all raising skeletons and zombies (despite what World of Warcraft and Diablo II might have taught you).

L.

xLegionx

I'm mainly talking about for mages and sorcerors here, not clerics so you are really supporting the issue I'm trying to bring out here. Those are divine spells you are talking about and divine spells tend to be more...self-preservative than the mage set. Mage necro spells however are more of an offensive term and tend not to be as useful as most spells in the game. Necromancers should have a more variety of spells especially since a handful of them become downright useless at the higher levels or probably just not useful at all at any level. And with them being the smallest number of spells for each level, it needs more spells such as circle of death.

Xzar

There are more crippled specialists, diviner for example. So unless every kit gets an improvement, its unfair to improve just necromancer.

Silverstar

Like Xzar says, you'd have to throw a bone to other specialist mages too. Which is a fine idea in my books, more spells is a good thing. Singling out Necromancers is kind of unneccessary though as they're not gimped with their current spell selection.

O_Bruce

First of all, it is essential to understand that concept of Necromancer or necromancy in general differs from franchise to franchise. In Diablo franchise, Necromancers are known as Priest of Rathma, and they have control over undead - they cannot perfectly raise someone back to life. They also look to keep a balance between words (or so I rememberer). In The Witcher, necromancy is a forbidden black art, which enables to get informations from dead, for example. In Forgotten Relams, necromancy is seen other even other way. I interpret it as a something to do with life force - it can be used for healing (healing spells are necromancy, even priests of Lathander are admitting so), harm, restoration, TRUE ressurection of dead (unlike Diablo franchise necromancesr), instant kill (Finger od Death) or non-direct damage (no direct harm like Fireball, but instead draining water from victim's body, like Abi-Dalzim's Horrid something do.)

That's about Necromancy. To be honest, I agree with Xzar. Also, if I would like to favor some mage specializations, I would make Enchanter more usefull and make more illusion spells that directly affect enemies, since Blindless is only illusion spell that affect enemies, instead of caster.

aldain

Xzar said:

There are more crippled specialists, diviner for example. So unless every kit gets an improvement, its unfair to improve just necromancer.

Like several other posters, I agree with this. Necromancy is far from the worst-off school at the moment, that less than honourable position being held by Divination. I'm of the opinion that we could always use some more spells however (not just for mages), but it seems unlikely for BG:EE (maybe in BG2:EE?).

xLegionx

Xzar said:

There are more crippled specialists, diviner for example. So unless every kit gets an improvement, its unfair to improve just necromancer.

I have used a diviner in my party before and they work just fine the way they are. Being able to scout and see where enemy positions are in a quick fashion is more useful imo than say an invoker. If you look at necromancy, you get like 1 or 2 spells for each spell level for Mages. That's way too low compared to most schools which give you like 5 or more spells each spell level. So I understand your concept but if something specific needs to be fixed then it needs to be fixed!

Besides, most spellcasting classes are still imo working fine as I can still make good use of them in any fashion I please.

Mortianna

Xzar said:

There are more crippled specialists, diviner for example. So unless every kit gets an improvement, its unfair to improve just necromancer.

Good point. Just adding another spell per level for each school of magic would make a big difference. They beefed up the number of Enchantment spells in TotSC--the same needs to be done with the other schools.

elminster

I don't like either of these options.

Luge

xLegionx said:

I'm mainly talking about for mages and sorcerors here, not clerics so you are really supporting the issue I'm trying to bring out here. Those are divine spells you are talking about and divine spells tend to be more...self-preservative than the mage set. Mage necro spells however are more of an offensive term and tend not to be as useful as most spells in the game. Necromancers should have a more variety of spells especially since a handful of them become downright useless at the higher levels or probably just not useful at all at any level. And with them being the smallest number of spells for each level, it needs more spells such as circle of death.

The Necromantic mage spells in BG include: Chill Touch, Larloch's Minor Drain, Ghoul Touch, Horror (one of the best low-level spells for crowd control), Skull Trap, Vampiric Touch, Spirit Armour and Animate Dead. That's plenty. See my previous comment.

L.

xLegionx

8 eight spells compared to what...like 10-20 spells in the evocation school? Lol I don't think so...

theJoshFrost

I agree. I beat BG1 and 2 with the same Necromancer, and it was very... underwhelming.

elminster

@xLegionx These spells will be available for necromancers in BG:EE

Chill Touch, Larloch's Minor Drain, Ghoul Touch, Horror, Hold Undead, Contagion, Skull Trap, Vampiric Touch, Spirit Armour and Animate Dead.

By my count evocation will have 17 spells from spell levels 1-5. So yes Necromancy has less, but frankly I'd rather see them fix spells which are useless before adding new ones. Besides, as someone who plays an illusionist I can tell you straight up that compared to other schools you have it pretty well off. The illusion school has an equal number of redundant and useless spells as Necromancy (reflected image and Shadow Door come to mind given the existence of mirror image and Improved Invisibility).

Side note. I wish that there was an option to pass on voting on a poll in order to see the results.

ChrisYui

I don't think class balancing should be an issue in a game like Baldur's Gate. One of my favorite things about this game is that every class is different and unique, and that you can choose to play the class that fits your style. Some classes are better in the sense that you can complete the game with ease, and some are harder to use and provide more of a challenge. That kind of a choice when creating a character is a BIG part of what makes this game fun and worth replay after replay. When you start to balance classes out to make one "more appealing" or "just as good as this other class/specialization" you really sacrifice the RP element and eventually homogenize classes.

I see this across the board, where everyone has a favorite class/specialization/kit to play and they want to see it buffed somehow. Sure, if there is a bug or incorrect description it should be changed- for the better of all. This is an issue I have with many games where developers specifically listen to those on forums who have favorite characters and try to balance a game around requests. That's another topic though.

If every class were just as appealing to play / pick and just as good as one another this game wouldn't be as fun. Most classes in this game have skills / spells that are based in lore ( spells granted via deity, etc ), for reasons that are not JUST for game balance, but give characters unique traits and classes depth.

xLegionx

Chris just because I like playing as a necromantic character doesn't mean I want to see it more powerful than any other school. I'm not blind to that fact of most players but balancing IS important because would you want to play a new game and play as something and then realize "Omg I just played as the weakest dude in the whole game"? No! Necromancers have too low a spell count to even consider specializing in necromancy. Im not trying to say that necromancy should be made more powerful than any of the other schools. In its current state, it's just far below worth specializing in and you have to focus more in other schools to make up for the lack of necromantic prowess. You see the point I'm trying to make? Necromancy is currently below the level of all the other schools and needs to be fixed, Atleast they should consider adding spells from the 3rd edition into bg;ee as there is a larger variety of spells such as cause fear, circle of death, etc. which is not in the current game.

elminster

xLegionx said:

Chris just because I like playing as a necromantic character doesn't mean I want to see it more powerful than any other school. I'm not blind to that fact of most players but balancing IS important because would you want to play a new game and play as something and then realize "Omg I just played as the weakest dude in the whole game"? No! Necromancers have too low a spell count to even consider specializing in necromancy. Im not trying to say that necromancy should be made more powerful than any of the other schools. In its current state, it's just far below worth specializing in and you have to focus more in other schools to make up for the lack of necromantic prowess. You see the point I'm trying to make? Necromancy is currently below the level of all the other schools and needs to be fixed, Atleast they should consider adding spells from the 3rd edition into bg;ee as there is a larger variety of spells such as cause fear, circle of death, etc. which is not in the current game.

Necromancy has spells for every spell level including level 9. There is more than one school of magic that can't say that. In no way is it "below the level of all the other schools".

xLegionx

How many for each spell level? Like 1 or 2? And all the other schools get like 4-6 spells each level and x9 that would throw necromantic spells out of the picture because as I said for like the 4th time you don't fully specialize in necromancy spells because there is too low an amount of spells to do so.

elminster

@xLegionx Firstly while it may be the case in the first two levels that other schools get more spells per level, that dissipates the higher up you go.

I'm looking over the necromancy spells and you could very easily viably play with a necromancer. I mean you'd have no spell protections with the important exception of Spirit armor, but you do get damaging spells at levels 1, 3, 7,8,9. Not to mention aoe support kind of spells at 2 and 6, and a decent single target debuff spells at spell levels 4 and 8. You might not be able to solo the game with the character if you were to only use Necromancer spells (it would certainly be a worthy challenge), but as it stands now it is a perfectly viable class to play. I mean compare that to trying the same thing with an abjurer, diviner, or illusionist. None of which get any damage spells (with the exception of imprisonment in the case of the abjurer - which is sort of damaging in that you essentially kill the target). You are pretty well off.

kiros

If anyone ever played the Improved Anvil mod, the necromancer was made to be a viable build because of added protection spells similar to spirit Armour and a few added damage dealing spells that caused slow/poison like effects (suits a necromancer well)

However, that isn't to say the necromancer class can't be played effectively, but a few more spells designed for this type of class sure would be nice :P

Dazzu

Clearly Diviners and Abjurers need no buffs!

Mordecai

My vote is for more spells altogether. More of every school. More for every class. More for every spell level. Yeah, that includes Necromancers. And Abjurers. And Clerics. And Paladins. And Wizard Slayers, for Pete's sake, give me more!

elminster

Mordecai said:

My vote is for more spells altogether. More of every school. More for every class. More for every spell level. Yeah, that includes Necromancers. And Abjurers. And Clerics. And Paladins. And Wizard Slayers, for Pete's sake, give me more!

Like I said earlier. More would be nice, but I would rather see them make the current spells that aren't useful more viable. Namely a lot of those level 1 and 2 spells especially which when compared to something like magic missiles or chromatic orb become almost worthless by BG2. Minor drain for one thing should get some kind of boost based in part on your level, so could shocking charge IMO (dare I mention infravision?). Then there are the Druid and Cleric spells which provide little in terms of usefulness...like Goodberry.

Space_hamster

I always played a necromancer, even RP them using only necromancer spells, lots of fun. They do not need re-balancing.

--

Goodberry is a good low level spell in BG, can save you if stuck in the middle of nowhere.

Silverstar

Space_hamster said:

Goodberry is a good low level spell in BG, can save you if stuck in the middle of nowhere.

And it's a FANTASTIC spell in ToEE. Don't want the companions to loot all the good stuff? Fill their inventory with goodberries

elminster

@space_hamster at what point in the game would you be stuck in the middle of nowhere, and at such a level that your own innate healing spells and Jaheira's light healing spells couldn't help you? Up to 8 berries and 1 health obtained from each is pretty useless. I mean as a druid you need to be level 3 to even get it, which is 4000 experience into the game (twice that for a multiclass like Jaheira).

But I do agree with your assertion that Necromancers are a usable class.

Space_hamster

I'm not saying its the best spell, or even a useful spell, but gotta admit, those berries look delicious. Perhaps they could upgrade the spell to good berry tarts, or good berry pies.

elminster

Maybe make it an easter egg. You run into some random person in the game, and if you have any goodberries you can learn the secret to making good berry pies

reedmilfam

The Pale Master was created later (3.5 I think) as an acknowledgement that necromancers get a very short end of a long staff, so to speak. I don't know about how the other classes go, as I don't play as a mage. I'm not a fan of micromanaging spells and, if I were to go as one, I'd tend toward Sorceror for the flexibility.

Regardless, my only knock on necro spells are the ones that require a touch attack - really gimps a class that has challenges in THACO throughout, even if base armor is ignored.