Best Necromancy in RPG's

[WaterMage]

A list of some RPG's with great necromancy in no particular order

First, D&D like :

Baizuo's Gate 3:

Necromancy is an wizard specialization. The necromancer gets a lot of benefits, like "grim harvest" which allows him to regain his hp after killing a enemy, if he used a 3rd tier spell, he gets 6 hp back. If the spell is a necromantic spell, he gets 3x. Undead Thralls is another benefit which increases drastically the damage, hit chance and hp of your minions.

5e necromancy is much weaker than 3/2e. Animate dead in 5e can only raise skeletons and zombies.In BG3 once you reach v 9 your animate dead can raise ghouls and winged ghouls., winged ghouls have amazing fly speed and can paralyze foes with its melee attacks. Create undead is also much better than in P&P. In P&P, is necessary to heighten it as a 9th tier spell to create a mummy. In game, you can raise mummies at lv 11, very close to the level cap of 12.

So the overall list of minion :

• Zombies Cheap and expendable foe - Avaliable at lv 5
• Skeleton Good ranged creature - Available at lv 5
• Ghoul A "upgrade" version of the previous undead - Available at lv 9
• Flying ghoul
• Great damage and control with its paralyzing claws - Available at lv 9
• Mummy - Relative good minion. Available at lv 11 with create undead

As you can only have one tier 6 spell slot at lv cap(12), having one mummy is the cap of minions which you can have without magical items. However, with the Crypt Lord Ring, is possible to have two mummies. Talking about necromancy outside of minionmancy, is possible to talk with deceased npcs but 5e lacks powerful ohk spells and spells are much weaker than bg2.

Is also possible to doing a long questline, get Dense Macabre spell. A quite powerful minion creation spell which requires no corpses



Baldur's Gate 2/1:

Contrary to BG3, being a necromancer in BG2 has greater drawbacks as the game is made with 2E ruleset, You have illusion as opposition school, so, forget the amazing low level illusion spells like blur and high level spells like simulacrum. There are no benefits in animate dead casted by a necromancer over a generalist caster. However, the necromancer target makes the save vs spell at -2 penalty.

That is incredible powerful. Combined with the natural -2 from Finger of Death can be extremely powerful and good.

By putting in a sequencer/contingency two lower resist + a greater malison, you can reduce up to 60% of enemy MR and make him deal a save vs spell at -8 penalty(-4 from malison + -2 from necromancer specialization + -2 from FoD spell itself), so, against Firkraag, the Red Dragon, great malison has a 95% chance of sticking. 65% chance of Firkraag failing his save against the FoD if the malison is on, 45% if it isn't. Combined, that's a 64% chance of failing his save. Then it's 95% to beat the remaining magic resistance with the FoD, for an overall 60.8% chance of the two-round kill vs the dragon.

BG1/2 also has lots of interesting mods, like Shadow magic mod.

Pathfinder Kignamer + Wrath of the righteous

In PF:KM, evil clerics are the best class for undead reanimation and necromancer specialized wizards, the best class for offensive dark magic spells. The most powerful spells from D&D got toned down in PF1e, for example, Finger of Death no longers OHK on a failed save, just dishes ridiculous high damage. Same for wail of the banshee. The illusion based spells in other hands had maintained the OHK capabilities.

Kingmaker has lots of powerful necromancer spells but honestly, other schools have its fair share of amazing spells. Sirroco and Ice Prison are the two most iconic examples. There are also way more minions in conjuration school than in necromancy school. Creeping doom can trivialize a huge portion of the game on unfair

In WoTR, the lich mythic path adds a lot of new undead companions, a very weak undead pet, and lots of interesting necormantic spells, including tier 10 "epic" spells. You cna even become a lich in chapter 5.

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Now, roguelikes :

ADOM - Ancients domains of Mysteryt

every class can learn necromancy skill however, only necromancers can fully master it, a lv 50 wizard which learns necromancy can only raise zombies and skeletons while a true necromancer can raise lots of different types of undead. Raising the dead is a "chaotic" act and messes with your char alignment, it also require corpses and damages your mana attribute(after some time it regens). There are also a variation. White necromancy. Only available for mist elves of neutral and lawful alignment. Animates constructs like Homunclus, Statues and Golems instead of undeads.

IDK if some necromancer abilities like the vampiric hands on lv 25 for necromancer applies to white necros as I never reached lv 25 but other abilities like animating every corpse on sight without cost for temporary instead of permanent undead doesn't seem to be available for white necros.

ToME4/Tales of Maj Eyal

This video explains better than any words



Rogue Empire - Dark Heroes

This game has a necromancy in between ADOM and ToME4. What I mean by that? It requires corpses for PERMANENT minions but contrary to adom, not only humanoid corpses can be used for necromancy. The drop rate for corpses is much more generous and there are a hard cap in the amount of permanent minions which you can have which grows with level. At lv 1, you can only have two minions and they are basic skeletons, however, reaching the level 10 and picking the options to increase the number of minions, I could get up to 6 minions(4 permanent and 2 temporary) and in my first run got the options to use also skeleton archers, wraiths and ghouls. Ghouls are by far the most effective minion, they start weak and small but they tends to drain lifeforce from enemies and grow in size. There are also a spell to create corpse but it costs a lot of hp, only use if you have no other choice. You can rest to regain hp but the game has food/starvation system but is much more generous than ADOM.

New spells and necromancer abilities can be learned randomly in level up screen, and from scrolls, books and wands. Failing to learn a spell can have disastrous consequences.

The default AI of ranged minions is braindead but there is a perk which can be randomly chosen to make it better. There are also temporary minions. Contrary to the "non dark' magic users which only uses mana, most offensive dark magic spells from necromancers also costs hp and necromancers are incredible frail. So you are essentially disarmed without minions.

The game also has abilities to become a Lich and a vampire. No, Lich doesn't have a phylactery like from ToME4 and is a very rare option in leveling up. Lich transformation in the game

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Gothic 2 + RETURNING mod

On Gothic 2 - returning, in order to become a necromancer, you need to ask for apprenticeship from Xardas, get 30 INT(very hard), and do a quest involving killing a "sheep of innos". After it, you can learn runes. There are no hard caps on how much creatures you can animate BUT each creature that you maintain has a mana upkeep and without the alternative balancing, most low tier summons are banished from boss battles. You can also learn unique skills like a skill who allows you to spend your own lifeforce(much greater than your mana) to maintain your army of darkness. You can also learn demonology. Demons in gothic universe are not creatures of fire, they are creatures of darkness.

The necromancer spells in the game are :

• Circle 1 = Arrow of darkness + Summon weak skeleton
• Circle 2 = Exhaustion + summon zombie
• Circle 3 = Spear of Darkness + Summon skeleton warrior
• Circle 4 = Deathball + summon demon which requires demonology and has a separated progression system
• Circle 5 = Army of darkness -> Summons 2 skeleton warriors and a mage armed with spear of darness.
• Circle 6 = "Skull" and Black Mist.

Sadly the mod is mostly in Russian and there is only a machine translation to English.


Hexen: Wrath of Cronos Mod



Age of Conan



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I can talk about other games like Diablo 2, Diablo 1 + Belzebub mod, Wolcen, Mount & Blade + Phantasy Calradia and Legacy of the Dragon, but this thread is already very long. I will only give some examples of AWFUL necromancies and imo the two worst examples of necromancies are Dragon Age Inquisition, a **** game with **** necromancy, is just spirit abilities from Origins but capped, more gear dependent and without animate dead. And TESO """necromancy"""" where the Sorcerer has more minions and cursing capabilities than necromancers. NPC necromancer in other hands do have a bit of cool skills and minion capabilities.

[Emphyrio]

necromancy doesn't make sense in any setting with resurrection spells

[WaterMage]

necromancy doesn't make sense in any setting with resurrection spells

Depends how they deal with resurection spells. IMO instead of "I will revive him", should be "I will TRY to revive him". If the body is well preserved, resurrection should be possible. If the "target" got reduced to dust, only divine tier miracles should be able to bring him back to life.

[WhiteShark]

necromancy doesn't make sense in any setting with resurrection spells

It makes sense if you want to control the target's actions. Resurrection doesn't let you do that.

[madbringer]

necromancy doesn't make sense in any setting with resurrection spells

It does if it is a choice between attaining true Godhood, and immortality, and undeath, which is the second best choice. I guess.

Becoming a dessicated skeleton or a floating skull might not seem like your first choice in picking ur brand of perpetual life, but you will never have to worry about liver failure, heart attacks, blood diseases, or, for that matter, actually breathing or eating.

Now, for a regular person that might seem horrific, but if ur a shutin incel autiste nerd that wants to study Wand n Scroll magazines for 5000 years in his moms basement, what's to hate?

[Lich]

If you want to be a necromancer who conquers the world with an army of undead minions, strategy games are better than RPGs. RPGs could differentiate their necromancy with craftable/customizable minions, like putting together minions with body parts that confer their properties on resulting minions, or giving minions equipment/items. But I don't know of RPGs that have deep systems for crafting or customizing minions.

[revenant]

If you want to be a necromancer who conquers the world with an army of undead minions, strategy games are better than RPGs. RPGs could differentiate their necromancy with craftable/customizable minions, like putting together minions with body parts that confer their properties on resulting minions, or giving minions equipment/items. But I don't know of RPGs that have deep systems for crafting or customizing minions.

Geneforge

[Lich]

Geneforge isn't about necromancy though

[Goth-Girl-Supremacy]

I liked Necromancer in D2 when you could raise an army so large and bully players online with weaker systems into crashing or reducing FPS to single digits as a show of Pentium 3 processing power.

[Oyster Sauce]

► Show Spoiler

[Goth-Girl-Supremacy]

► Show Spoiler

I know what this picture means and I don't appreciate it.

[WaterMage]

o conquers the world with an army of undead minions, strategy games are better than RPGs.

There is Strategy + RPG games.

[Lich]

Conquest of Elysium 5 has good necromancy, you can turn yourself into a lich or demilich, raise a bunch of skeletons, teleport around and terrorize cities

[Lich]

Diablo 2 has the best necromancy of all well-known RPGs. The three skill tabs work together perfectly, and all skills are thematically appropriate for the class. Even direct damage spells are summons-themed. The only thing I really don't like is the timer on summons, but this can be easily removed with simple modding.

[WaterMage]

D2 has the best in isometric arpgs. But there are other subgenres.

[Breathe]

o conquers the world with an army of undead minions, strategy games are better than RPGs.

There is Strategy + RPG games.

**** I've got to play some of the M&B games that've been sitting in my steam acc forever.

[Slavic Sorcerer]

Elder Scrolls Online has a very great Necromancer class, and Necromancer-esque gear
Tank, healer, dps - as all classes in ESO, they can do it as well, depending on the build.

Guild Wars 2 has a different kind of Necromancer. Base class is enough, but you can go Reaper, Harbinger, or Scourge with elite specializations.
Main mechanic is usage of the Shroud. GW2 Necro can summon minions too

Reaper, as the name suggests, wields scythe in their shud, and greatsword outside of it. Main role is tank and dps.
Scourge is a sand-themed spec that allows you to summon Shades to cover area with effects. They wield a torch as a weapon. They have access to their Shroud skills in base form. Main role is DoT dps, barriers, and healing.
Harbinger has health-draining mechanics in their shroud to buff their abilities. It's themed around potions and bottles, making it plaguedoctor-esque. Main role is condi dps, buffs and debuffs. Their weapon of choice is a pistol.

[WaterMage]

Elder Scrolls Online has a very great Necromancer class, and Necromancer-esque gear

Nope. Is just a bone shaman that cant do interesting stuff in lore and that becro npcs can do. In fact sorcerer has more minions and curses than necro. I would say that affliction warlocks in wow are more necromancers than eso.

And gw2, every char is the same and minions are trash. Imo is a huge decline over gw1.

Imo only dragon age inquisition managed to implement a worst """"necromancy"""" than eso.

**** I've got to play some of the M&B games that've been sitting in my steam acc forever.

yep. Great games. With endless amount of mods, from ww1 to high fantasy.

[Slavic Sorcerer]

Apologies for the spam and offtopic, as my occult geek is tingling.
Portrayal of magic in the modern era in contrary to the past eras was my topic on several essays back in school.

It is interesting how the linguistics evolved over centuries.
"Necros" meaning "dead body" and "manteia" meaning "divination" in Greek made the word "necromantia" in late Latin.

The practice of necromancy was about invoking the spirits to tell future and grab secret knowledge only the dead could access to; be it family secrets or beyond the grave, or the future.
It was far from minion summoning and control over dead.

In the medieval era, necromancy gained many traits that are forgotten in the modern era, or perhaps other branches were established as their own thing.
Necromancy was associated with demon summoning rather than spirits of the dead, as it was believed resurrection would only work with the help of God and spirits invoked were actually demons.
Demons offered knowledge the same as the spirits of the dead would when the practice was established pre-christian era but it was focused on the forbidden.
Demons also offered will manipulation by possesion, and illusions.

As with a lot of "mancies" or divination methods (hydromancy, pyromancy, etc), it took more literal sense.

Modern day era Necromancers are more direct with the death theme.
This made a Necromancer a perfect villain for many stories, because the viewer rarely if ever would sympathize with someone who plays with a dead body for a hobby, and the topic of "true resurrection vs necromancer's raise dead" is common - which I see as a remanant of the believe from the medieval era.

Not to mention the Christian "everything magic is satanic" trend decades ago propelled Necromancers to be the bad guys

Most often used colors associated with this type of magic is a combination of sickly green or teal green, and black.
Black is always present.
Sick green has been associated with toxins and disease. Tealish, cold green is more akin to spirits.
This color combination ofc is opposed to gold and white associated with the Clergy.

Regardless of the franchise, they always control and/or summon dead - as far as I explored.
Depending on the franchise, they also summon spirits, but only in few instances - like in DnD - they still go back to their roots with Speak with the Dead.
Sometimes they bring disease, which makes sense cause dead rotten corpses arent the healthiest, but also they can cast curses (jinxes and hexes are usually not the case, but that's another can of worms).

Because a Necromancer is easy contrast with a Priest/Cleric, a lot of the times people can allow themselves to be more cruel.
Flesh golems and gory creations were also introduced (probably to appease China too, since the skull is a prohibited image).

Necromancers went quite the evolution from invoking the dead for the purposes of divination to what we know today.

[Slavic Sorcerer]

Elder Scrolls Online has a very great Necromancer class, and Necromancer-esque gear

Nope. Is just a bone shaman that cant do interesting stuff in lore and that becro npcs can do. In fact sorcerer has more minions and curses than necro. I would say that affliction warlocks in wow are more necromancers than eso.

And gw2, every char is the same and minions are trash. Imo is a huge decline over gw1.

Imo only dragon age inquisition managed to implement a worst """"necromancy"""" than eso.

**** I've got to play some of the M&B games that've been sitting in my steam acc forever.

yep. Great games. With endless amount of mods, from ww1 to high fantasy.

Understandable.
I rarely play Necromancers, if ever.
I'm not big fan of classes that summon minions as their main feature, and modern day Necromancy aesthetic is meh to me.

In ESO it was more like "I wanna try the new class they just dropped" and I like the mechanics for healer Necro.
In GW2 it was mix of "I wanna make one character of each elite spec to fight boredom" and "those specs really suit some characters I created for my novel".

Gladly, in both cases, I can just ignore minion summoning

In BG3 I dipped 2 levels for my Druid, but it was only because I made a mod to add offensive necromancy spells to the Druid list, as it suits the Druid I play in TT.

► Show Spoiler

I'm obsessed with water casters (water as liquid water, not this ice ********. Water magic and ice magic have different vibes, properties, and theme)
Priests/clerics to a lesser degree.
Druids only if they control flora, and poisons if possible.
DnD Druid is most disliked class by me, because vast majority of the spells do not suit my vision, and I hate Wild Shape feature.

[WaterMage]

.
I'm not big fan of classes that summon minions as their main feature,

i like the fantasy of being powerful and having powerful servants. Eso necro also fails in other aspect of necromancy. In fact, npc classes tends to be better than pc classes

About water, in spoilers , I really love water based magery bit so few games dis it right. Gothic 2 + returning is one example. I loved playing it as both, water mage and necromancer. You can throw geysers, hailstorms and summon ice golems. Imo that is cooler than the dark spells and creatures of necro. Sadly water is the most underused element. Bg1/2 has 3 elementals, only water is missing. Same for solasta. Gothic 1 allowed you to be a water mage but 2 dropped it.

[SoLong]

Understandable.
I rarely play Necromancers, if ever.
I'm not big fan of classes that summon minions as their main feature, and modern day Necromancy aesthetic is meh to me.

Honestly I would love to play a class that summons minions as its main feature. The problem is that all such classes I've played thus far utterly suck.

Take the necromancer in GW2 for example: Extremely comfortable PvE grinding and leveling since you have your minions to tank for you... but anything competitive like raiding or pvp is right out. Because minions actually do atrocious damage and have horrible AI.

I'll ignore everything after Heart of Thorns because I haven't played most of it. I lost interest after the Palawa Joko disaster when it finally forced me to accept that the devs aren't capable of writing good villains without killing them off almost immediately to focus on the ******* dragons. Which would be ok if the things had any kind of presence instead of feeling like sentient forces of nature.

It's the one thing I give WoW credit for: Their Burning Legion actually felt present in much of the world and wasn't just and interchangeable line of throw away villains of the week.

[Acrux]

I really love water based magery

Shocking.

[WaterMage]

You guys talk about mmos, age of conan necro is epic. You can have 8 minions and control them, sacrifice them for aoe fear, become weaker for more minions, and have powerful dark and ice magic.

Even if you hate minions, you cab sacrifice all minion capability for more power essentially becoming a Dark Cryomancer. Demonologists gets a succubus slave and infernal magic

[rusty_shackleford]

I played a wizard necro in DDO for a while but the pet sucked, really hated that all the pets were garbo in that game because they didn't scale.

Had extremely high survivability tho

[WaterMage]

I played a wizard necro in DDO for a while but the pet sucked, really hated that all the pets were garbo in that game because they didn't scale.

Had extremely high survivability tho

pet necro sucks in ddo but save or die spells are quite good. Auras too.

[Lutte]

> The practice of necromancy was about invoking the spirits to tell future and grab secret knowledge only the dead could access to

It could be said that most supernatural practices were in one way or the other tied to things like these in ancient myths. There was no wizard capable of drawing power on their own knowledge, studying books the way a modern man studies science. It started with shamanism - call upon the souls of the ancestors, which ostensibly is no different from necromancy, then evolved into communing with spirits and gods (various pagan **** like druids), and demons (once Christianity had a say) but no human could become a wizard/mage/witch/necromancer/whatever without the help of something foreign.

And all forms of 'magic' was highly ritualistic. On the occasions they were not, like the powerful myths of Merlin, the person doing it wasn't a human being to begin with (merlin is half-spirit, or half-demon depending on the source story).

More than the difference between how necromancy was perceived in ancient stories vs modern fiction, it's also the difference in low vs high fantasy, where pure human beings were always living in severe limitations compared to spiritual beings. If you can find an ancient story about a human reanimating dead bodies, chances are it involved a lot of effort and rituals and that person certainly wouldn't fit the modern archetype of the necromancer raising nation destroying armies. 99% stories about the undead in the past were about "natural" occurrences, like someone who died with greed/envy/hatred in their hearts, or major resentment, or the body was exposed to negative energy for a long time etc.

Modern fiction has completely shunned the framework of low fantasy in favor of high where people do not need mixed blood with legendary creatures or invoking foreign powers to become legendary, all-powerful themselves. And when magic becomes a commonplace, boring thing, it no longer is.. magic.

[rusty_shackleford]

@WaterMage

looks like a game you'd like, watch the trailer, screenshots are much more barren

[Vergil]

@WaterMage looks like a game you'd like, watch the trailer, screenshots are much more barren

Doesn't look like you can pay mexican prostitutes in this

[rusty_shackleford]

@WaterMage