Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback BG3 Proposal 18 - The Art of Necromancy - Speak with the Dead also raises them

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https://i.ibb.co/68w671B/bg3-speak-with-the-dead.jpg

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The Art of Necromancy
Tome (Offhand)

Hire the Dead: Speak with the Dead raises them as your Undead servants.

Exhausting Necromancy: Every Undead you raise reduces your damage by 1d12.

Forbidden Friendship: Any creature unrisen by Speak with the Dead is hostile towards you.


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Explainer

• Inspiration: Game of Thrones.
• Builds: Wizard (School of Necromancy) 12, OathBreaker 7+ (Aura of Hate).
• Objective: Incentive players to use Speak with the Dead by rewarding them with a permanent Undead servant. Speak with the Dead as an indirect damaging mechanic.
• Tome: The Art of Necromancy is a book written by Kazerabet. It is an offhand item, like a shield. It offers no AC bonus, but lots of Undead servants as a meat shield.
• Hire the Dead: After asking your 5 questions, raise the dead as a permanent servant. No limit of servants. Slower than Horn of the Beckoning Death, but overtime the player can build a massive army of the dead. It will undoubtedly achieve the true Necromancer archetype. This item is accessible at level 1 in the Overgrown Ruins, so the player can stack as soon as possible its undead army. Better than Finger of Death, as it leaves the target intact (no Skeleton, Zombie, Ghoul), with its equipment, and the Undead are equippable (if humanoïds), so the player can recycle its loot on its undead army. They get the Undead tag. Speak with the Dead comes with inherent limitations: It deals no damage, it can only be used off combat, it cannot be cast on companions (PC), nor be recast on the same corpse. Which means once a servant dies, it cannot be risen again. The servants do not level up. The player constantly need to get new servants in order
  to maintain its damage, and stronger servants to increase it. The increasing difficulty of the game will naturally remove the weaker minions from the Undead army.
• Exhausting Necromancy: Maintaining an Undead army puts a strain on its caster, so much it is unable to deal decent damage by any regular mean. As the caster will deal no damage, one strategy is to buff minions, debuff enemies and control the battlefield.
• Forbidden Friendship: Such a powerful magic is only accessible in solo play. NPCs and party members will attack your Undead minions on sight. Immediate penalty.
• Undead Thralls: Currently, it only applies to Animate Dead. It’s a bug. PHB says it applies to any Undead created by a Necromancy spell. Undead Thralls applies.
• Itemization: Circle of Bones, Abyss Becknoners (if caster stays invisible).
• Best stats: { Wizard Level + Intelligence } (Undead Thralls), items on pets.
• Balance: Accessible only in Tactician. If the difficulty is changed, destroy the item.
  If the item is unequipped, unspawn all the Undead servants it generated.

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Inspiration

Kazerabet




https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Kazerabet

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Game of Thrones

White Walker revives the Dead

Army of the Dead

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Other proposals:
https://baldur-proposals.web.app/

Sounds like an interesting mod idea, but it doesn't really fit 5E or the base game. Also too powerful for a low level ability, and a bit inconsistent is that this type of Necromancy leads to immediate reprisal while your party members are happy with Spore Druid or Animate Dead.

The idea is to incentive the player to
1) Use Speak with the Dead, which is an awesome, but sadly underused ability
2) Kill every NPC in the game, so it can join its Army

Of course, low level NPC (5 HP) won't last long in act 3, but they can serve as meat shield (enemies will waste their attacks on them).


Current Undead spells, as implemented, do not follow the rules of 5th edition.

Like, not at all.


I don't know if you tried to play a necromancer, but it is not fun at all.

You are Necromancer at level 2, but you cannot raise any minion until level 6 (end of the Act 1, start of Act 2), which is very far (dozen of hours, if not hundred).

You raise minions, but their number is limited to 4 Skeletons that you cannot equip.

They have bows and cannot attack in melee.

The alternative is zombies.

While they can improve their numbers overtime, the existence of newborn zombies is limited in time and they just are zombies, you can't equip them.

None of these Undead are permanent, they disappear at long rest.

That's a lot to restrictions handle for a customer who plays a necromancer in order to lead an Undead army.

Hopefully, the "Necromancy feeling" can be improved with this proposal.

In addition, for balance purposes, the item only appears in tactician mode and is destroyed if you change the difficulty.


Yes.

Revived creatures are different from skeletons, zombies or fungal creatures.

But that does not justify, lore speaking, this adjustment.

Let's simply imagine the item is cursed.

that would break the story beats where you speak to the dead.

Hi detective I just need to speak to the body for a minute, also I'm stealing it and now you have no evidence, ba-bye

Well, no more than Animate Dead that destroys the corpse.

The proposed item is literally meant to break the story, like the Dark Urge.

With this item, go full Evil Necro and kill everyone in the game.

Only available in Tactician, and designed for people who already finished the story, and now want to destroy the game.