Necromancers

[Salius]

We have damage casters (storms) and healers (druids), so how could we make Necromancers a unique class and not just some hybrid?

I propose we give them area poison attacks (low damage, stat reduction), enbalm corpse (preserves corpses), raise dead (raises a zombie from a corpse, only one pet per necromancer... it regens only from corpses of mobs), drain (draws power from dying victims, only works on dying mobs), and Spear of Vashimoth (creates a spear from a corpse)

Thoughts?

[Fantom]

Surely a Necromancer is a specialist mage?

I want a mage guild - how about you start with some basics for that - then they can chose subguilds later.

[Fire]

Ilya was working on a Mage Guild. Then he stopped working on it and stopped logging on. Perhaps you can check his work and tell us what all he has done and give us ideas?

[Salius]

What kind of basis were you thinking of for a mage guild?

If the whole system was up in the air we could do something like this:

Mage Primary
=150% damage Gattack
=75% heal Gheal
=Elemental Utility Special SummonCloud
=icestorm (weak)
=lightning (strong)
=hail (weak area)
=Lshield (thiefs' bane)

Thief
=Multiple of weapon special, backstab, useable to begin combat only
=stab (single extra hit with used weapon)
=hide (perception vs steal utility special)
=smokescreen (random direction flee with hide at the end)
=laquered poison (imbues weapons with store bought poisons)

Druid
=150% heal Gheal
=75% damage, Gdamage
=Pet Utility Special (makes pets follow you around because cheap is cheap)
=Barkskin (why wear armor)
=aislin (why logout when you can take six rounds of damage)

---------------------------------------
Mage Subguilds

Battle Casters
+50% gdamage
-25% gheal

Fire Throwers
- normal gdamage skills of mage
+ Fireball and Nova (area attacks, gp 25 and 100)

Earth
-50% gdamage
+ Summon Earth Elemental (room only pet, blocks damage for everyone in room, high ac, high hp, disappears when caster leaves room, gp 200)

Water
-25% gdamage
+25% gheal
- hailstorm
+ Summon Water Elemental (room only pet, does not block --no physical presence-- but has good attack, disappears when caster leaves room, gp 200)

Necromancer
-gheal
+Siphon (steal hp/no healing here, would have to use a diminishing version of current damage code... some kind of exponential decay series multiplying the current code)
+25% gheal
-lightning
-icestorm
-hailstorm
+Bonestorm (requires a corpse, area affect damage)
+Summon Zombie (requires a corpse, only one zombie available at a time)
+Empower Zombie (requires a corpse, heals zombie and raises its stats)
+100% gdamage (bonestorm uses corpse value as a reagent; thus, damage would be much lower than normal attacks)

Lightning Master
+improved lightning (50gp, fast cast)
-icestorm
-hailstorm
-cloudbag
+lightning blade (creates a weapon that disappears when wielder does anything but attack with it)

---------------------------------------
Thief Subguilds

Assassin
+25% backstab and stab damage
-smokescreen
+ambush (increased version of hide)

Sadists
-stab
-backstab
+Frenzy (special command that doubles combat hits for a limited time, 200gp)

Envenomers
+50% number of hits before poison wears off
+circle (half a backstab useable during combat, 150gp, high delay--have to get around to their back and all)

---------------------------------------

Druid Subguilds

Pet Merchant
-25% gdamage
+25% pet level (skill roll while qualifying type of pet) and duration
-barkskin

War Priest
+50% gdamage
-25% gheal
-aislin
-pets
+improved barkskin (+25%)

Empath
+50% gheal
-25% gdamage
-barkskin
+improved aislin (fast cast)
+improved forage (5gp cost, oh my)
+improved sit at login skills (Pikachu +10%)
---------------------------------------

The values are arbitrary, but some sort of balancing would have to be added.

Food for thought.