Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Necromancy and 5E shortcomings

I was thrilled to find out I could play a necromancer in BG III but it seems like necromancy is pretty weak in D&D 5E (I started reading up on it as I haven't played D&D since version 3.5). The ability to regain hit points seems useful but there isn't any damage dealing 2nd level necromancy spells (unless you add other sources like Volos guide and the like) so necromancy is going to be pretty crippled without subclass specific role playing elements to bolster it and I don't know if the game will get that nuanced.

Is Larian looking at enhancements to allow necromancy to shine a bit in game? If it follows 5E strictly and doesn't support some custom responses (or spells unique to BG III) based on subclass I'm concerned that it won't be fun to play since virtually all other sub classes for wizard seem better between levels 1-10 (since I heard this only will get you to level 10 or so).

So this leaves me with 2 questions:

1. Will different sub-classes be treated substantially differently?
2. Will Larian be making changes when 5E leaves a classes abilities significantly more lackluster than others in 5E cannon?

What do the rest of you think, should I give up on my hopes of playing a misunderstood necromancer or can Larian do something to save this subclass? I've hear Paladins are pretty good now, not that I'm in love with the class. I just don't know what to play if necromancy is crippled by bad design in 5E.

I don't have any inside info nor any experience with 5e, but considering necromancy is pretty potent in DOS 2 I think they'll be looking at making it viable in BG 3 too. At least I'd be surprised otherwise.

If they limit you to only one summon it will kill the necromancy... More than 5e already killed

Pathfinder Kingmaker has the best necromancy among modern games by far. The unique thing that i don't like is that Finger of Death only deals massive damage instead of OHKilling on failed save like was on 3.5e.

i think its about the ammount of summons
5e doesnt do that because of the aciton economy

In Original Sin, summons were powerful because your resources were AP (which you get every turn) and Cooldowns (which allow you to use the same thing after a certain amount of time). That meant you had to be restricted in the amount of summons because they were low action-economy-cost for you, high action-economy cost for the enemy.

In 5e, summons tend to be of low threat and cost spell slots, which you can't get back during combat. The resource model is different, so the action economy cost is different. So there's no reason to nerf summons in BG 3 as far as I can see.

To be fair, necromancy on dos2 is extremely lackluster exactly due cooldowns, only one summon limit and the spell progression. What i mean by spell progression? You get all skills before 1/5 of the game and then they only progress on numbers of damage and armor...

Even Animate dead on BG2 can summon tougher skeletons depending on your caster level.

This is what I'm talking about. It would be a shame to have a subclass that's going to be far less viable than other alternatives right out of the gate. I don't know if Larion reads these boards, or responds to players, but I'd really like to know their thoughts as well. If this is going to be locked to 5e Rules and spells then Necromancy may not be a viable subclass without substantial and unique roleplay elements and given the exponential amount of work (race/class/subclass) that could add to responses and interactions I doubt we'll see much use.

If they find certain classes aren't being used they may (or may not depending on WOTC) improve things.

Maybe someone can port Dread Necromancer from 3.5e to 5e ( https://www.dndtools.net/classes/dread-necromancer/ )

NWN2 had a mod who adds this class https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn2/hakpak/original-hakpak/dread-necromancer-class and adds some spells "- Plague of Undead (Level 9): Plague of undead creates 2 skeleton archers and 2 zombie guardians with maximum hit points for their Hit Dice. The undead remain animated until destroyed."



But 5e isn't exactly the best edition to be a necromancer. There are some good homebrew stuff (eg https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/249855-dread-necromancer )

That looks great but it's really a question of what will be in BG III. We don't even know if they'll allow homebrew classes. I wish the dev's would weigh in on this.

I think they will balance it after early access. It is hard to say what is viable or not, till it is not playable, unless you are a dnd5 veteran.

In pen and paper setting a failed saving throw and your character is killed, was a bit cruel, so I understand the changes the new dnd books had to make.

There are no OHK spells on 5e if i remember correctly. Finger of death deals only 7d8 + 30 necrotic damage ( https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Finger%20of%20Death#content )

Keep in mind that on 5e, feeblemind can end the day of a high level caster. Mainly non INT based casters ( https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Feeblemind#content ) On 3.5e, a edition who had OHK spells had it as a circle 5 spell( https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/feeblemind.htm )

A lot of CRPG adaptations include OHKspells so they don't need to ""balance"" it. On 3.5e, most enemies with high hp also has high FORT saves, so they are very likely to resist FoD. On 2e, most enemies with high hp has to roll low to save vs death. I an playing dark sun wake of the ravager and a encounter that i could't beat by any way become a cakewalk due the dominate(tier 5) spell. The encounter that i an talking about is the mindflayers. They happen to have strong guards who has poor saves vs my DOMINATE

Yeah, I wasn't all that happy with what WotC did with necromancers in 5th. It's now all but impossible to play a good aligned necromancer. Looks like weakest of the wizard classes.

Now conjurers and abjurerers, on the other hand, look great. Not sure how you would implement the conjurer in a video game since they can now make any mundane item for limited period of time but here's hoping.

Try this You-Tube video on how to build and play a 5e Necromancer.
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z41F6FsvEIE"

Here's my Necromancer planned build for BG3 over on D&D Beyond:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/profile/Merlex/characters/26963044

From everything I'm hearing, Diviners are the most powerful Wizard sub-class.

Necromancy on 5e with lv cap = 10 will be extremely weak.

BG2 in other hands, necromancy on BG2 was so epic...

Take nizidramanii'yt for eg. Before talking to the dragon, i've stopped the time and casted a lot of lower resistance on him. Then my chain contingency casted the rest, lowering his resistance by about 150%. My sequencer casted 3 Greater Malison on him, meaning that he has a 12 penalty on saves and then, i casted stop time again, putted 3 skull traps in a sequences and ended his life in a fraction of a minute.



The worst thing that Larian can do is to make "only one summon limit BS".It would kill the little of necromancy that 5e has.

Pathfinder Kingmaker had good necromancy and i wish that BG3 will also has a interesting necromancy. Kingmaker Could be better, could have OHK spells instead of massive damage on finger of death for eg and enemies and more undead creation options instead of only the graveknight and the living armor, on P&P you can even have a undead elephant...

I don't how they could limit Animate Dead to one summons. The Necromancer's 6th level feature:

Undead Thralls

At 6th level, you add the animate dead spell to your spellbook if it is not there already. When you cast animate dead, you can target one additional corpse or pile of bones, creating another zombie or skeleton, as appropriate.

Whenever you create an undead using a necromancy spell, it has additional benefits:

The creature’s hit point maximum is increased by an amount equal to your wizard level.
The creature adds your proficiency bonus to its weapon damage rolls.

Merlex , Pale MAsters on P&P are ALL about multiple summons but on NWN1, NWN2 and DDO they have only one summon.I don't need to say that everyone hates one summon limit and PRC, spell fixes, warlock reworked, etc are must have mods to have a better game experience.

Agreed with that, sadly in games with Multiplayer they use to limit the number of summons to a minimum.

In NWN they did it so you do not pull too much to the server.

Diablo 2(2000) allow you to have 50+ minions and had multiplayer. The PRC servers on NWN1 allow multiple summons.

Also keep in mind that stop time is extremely disturbing for the MP and instead of removing, NWN1 just allowed a server to disable it.

But honestly, i rather NOT having necromancy than having it completely nerfed. NWN2 was my first contact with 3.5e warlock and i thought "why someone would use this class, all invocations are worthless and the eldrtich blast is just a bow that misses a lot. HE is just a archer with a worst BAB". After i finished the game, i decided to see the mods and when i played with warlock reworked, i loved so much that even read complete arcane despite not having a group to play 3.5e from long years.... Imagine how much frustration someone who enjoys play as a necromancer and finished BG1/2 as one or play 5e as one and "cool, i don't have a P&P group anymore but at least i can play on my PC" and after like 40 hours to get animate dead(assuming that the game is 80 hours long), he can only have a single weak skeleton... That would be the most frustrating thing in a game ever.

I asked for then on reddit AMA and got no answers from Larian. ( https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fhk1u3/im_swen_vincke_creative_director_at_larian/fkbldlo/ )

After searching, looks like there are ZERO answers about multiple summons So i an assuming the worst.... Lets hope that BG3 will be mod friendly and so people will fix necromancy(that will probably come broken)

I completely agree. But if they do that in this game, they might as well ban Necromancers. It's their main feature. Without it, they're useless. 5e already gimped their spells, summons is all they got.