How’s the Necromancy?

[Puggly the Grey]

So I played Kingmaker a decent amount, and I’m thinking of buying this game as well, but I have a question that needs answering before I make up my mind.

In Kingmaker, my only complaint was that necromancy and bog standard summoning were virtually indistinguishable from one another.

So my question is this; Does WotR have proper necromancy, or is it still just a weaker spin off of summoning?

[Bard]

Lich mythic path can't finish the game at the moment so...not great?

But yeah, skeleton summons work the same as normal summons outside of the Lich path.

[CHAO$$$]

The lich seems to be one of the mythic paths with a lot of special story path actions (including lich exclusive companions), however the base summoning is still alrgely the same.

[XartaX]

You can buff skeletons quite a lot on the lich path (especially combine with cruoromancer) and you get some crazy stuff like being able to convert all your elemental damage into negative energy (which you can then make bypass all immunities/resistances). You can also summon hundreds of skeletons if you really want to due to the extra spell slots from mythic paths.

[Puggly the Grey]

Ah, I see, well that all sounds lame as hell.

In that case, I see no need to buy this game right now, I’ll wait until it’s at least 50% off.

Thank you for answering my question!

[The Hat]

You can repurpose slain enemies, to collect mini bosses on a map.
Do massive heals on your undead with unique spells.
Buff them to infinity in their stats, including their HP pool.
Large anti life spells, and health steal spells.
Unique summons.
Free Champion as a permanent 7th companion, stacks with any pet.
2 Undead story companions
New buildings and choices, events etc.
New spells for your spell book, either combined with sorcerer or unique.
Keep stacking with other buffs summoners get, as well as mythic options, pets, backgrounds, items, etc, and you end up a monster.

The guy who said it seems like a regular summoner, it really isn't. Its a summoner on steroids and i'm only in act 3 still, there is still a lot more to come. No idea what buffs the main building will give now its finally ready, or what additional spells i'll get getting as i go further.

The campaign is bugged. On the strategic map you can't raise dead in armies that have dead, so you end up saving your dead in a army for big fights and using regular mortals to harvest bodies for it.

Oh I keep adding things here but the lich itself like all mythic path gets a lot of optional feats, and several optional abilities just for it.

[XartaX]

Originally posted by The Hat:

You can repurpose slain enemies, to collect mini bosses on a map.
Do massive heals on your undead with unique spells.
Buff them to infinity in their stats, including their HP pool.
Large anti life spells, and health steal spells.
Unique summons.
Free Champion as a permanent 7th companion, stacks with any pet.
2 Undead story companions
New buildings and choices, events etc.
New spells for your spell book, either combined with sorcerer or unique.
Keep stacking with other buffs summoners get, as well as mythic options, pets, backgrounds, items, etc, and you end up a monster.

The guy who said it seems like a regular summoner, it really isn't. Its a summoner on steroids and i'm only in act 3 still, there is still a lot more to come. No idea what buffs the main building will give now its finally ready, or what additional spells i'll get getting as i go further.

The campaign is bugged. On the strategic map you can't raise dead in armies that have dead, so you end up saving your dead in a army for big fights and using regular mortals to harvest bodies for it.

Oh I keep adding things here but the lich itself like all mythic path gets a lot of optional feats, and several optional abilities just for it.

Combined with caster base classes. You can combine with wizard etc. too

[Kasa]

It's still a weaker spin off of summoning.

[Telsker Sonpos]

Necromancy as a school of magic is the same : very weak at the lower levels, then very strong at higher levels. When it comes to summons, Animate Dead is still the best summoning spell of the game.

[XartaX]

Originally posted by Davids55:

Necromancy as a school of magic is the same : very weak at the lower levels, then very strong at higher levels. When it comes to summons, Animate Dead is still the best summoning spell of the game.

Early game specialization doesn't matter anyway, as long as you make sure staple spells aren't among your opposition schools (grease, web, etc.). Casters early game are just there to make their enemies existence miserable anyway. For example on the tavern attack battle you can just stick one web at each entrance (lasts for the entire battle) and the whole fight turns into a joke.

[The Hat]

Originally posted by Kasa:

It's still a weaker spin off of summoning.

Weaker How?

[Madjar]

Originally posted by Davids55:

When it comes to summons, Animate Dead is still the best summoning spell of the game.

Am I missing something, like one or two levels after I got animate dead it was useless.
Die in one hit, can't hit anything.
The amount of attacks the level 20-30 things this game throws at us negates their use as chaff.

[DrunkPunk]

Repurpose makes it pretty fantastic with the lich path. Throw it on all the big baddies and they become your big baddies for that zone.

[The Hat]

Originally posted by Goring Blade:

Originally posted by Davids55:

When it comes to summons, Animate Dead is still the best summoning spell of the game.

Am I missing something, like one or two levels after I got animate dead it was useless.
Die in one hit, can't hit anything.
The amount of attacks the level 20-30 things this game throws at us negates their use as chaff.

Mine start with +3HP with my background. Augment Summoning gives them +4 Str and +4 Con. Ascendant Summons gives them Str | Dex | Con bonuses equal to the mythic rank plus 1, Beyond the grave gives another Str | Dex | Char bonus of half the mythic rank plus 1. I buff them with false grace which is 3d+ Caster Level HP. Superior summoning adds an extra creature, giving between 1D4+3 undead. (Am I missing anything apart from items which buff summons?)

In most fights they do okay. To big creatures and bosses they are cannon fodder, to distract them from your pets, companions, and other bigger summons like the various lich path summons or the regular create undead graveknights etc that do the damage.

So far I have played around with metamagic also. I can either quicken spell to get them instantly at a 4 level penalty and take the -1 level favorite metamagic feat, so it becomes a level 7 not 8 spell later game. Alternatively I can go for an extended duration to double it with extend, then take the same -1 level favorite metamagic feat to keep it the same level.

Finally I want to add if you take ascendant element negative energy, your offensive spells as a lich are incredible.

[XartaX]

Originally posted by The Hat:

Originally posted by Goring Blade:

Am I missing something, like one or two levels after I got animate dead it was useless.
Die in one hit, can't hit anything.
The amount of attacks the level 20-30 things this game throws at us negates their use as chaff.

Mine start with +3HP with my background. Augment Summoning gives them +4 Str and +4 Con. Ascendant Summons gives them Str | Dex | Con bonuses equal to the mythic rank plus 1, Beyond the grave gives another Str | Dex | Char bonus of half the mythic rank plus 1. I buff them with false grace which is 3d+ Caster Level HP. Superior summoning adds an extra creature, giving between 1D4+3 undead. (Am I missing anything apart from items which buff summons?)

In most fights they do okay. To big creatures and bosses they are cannon fodder, to distract them from your pets, companions, and other bigger summons like the various lich path summons or the regular create undead graveknights etc that do the damage.

So far I have played around with metamagic also. I can either quicken spell to get them instantly at a 4 level penalty and take the -1 level favorite metamagic feat, so it becomes a level 7 not 8 spell later game. Alternatively I can go for an extended duration to double it with extend, then take the same -1 level favorite metamagic feat to keep it he same level.

Ascendant summoning etc. feats (the ones that says they work with SUMMONS) doesn't work with skeletons (it looks for the "summon" tag on the spell, I believe. Animate dead isn't a summon. You are raising the dead, not conjuring them). But yeah you can buff them a lot. Also don't forget cruoromancer can basically replicate some of the summon feats for skeletons.

You're better off taking the feats that turn all your elemental damage into negative energy and stacking it with the other feat that turns one element type immune to resistances and immunities.

[The Hat]

Ouch that hurts to know but thanks :D. At least the regular summons still have a place in my spellbook.