Shaodrun necromancer, Could you build one in the system and what would you use Options

[loadsol]

I was wondering what spells you would take in trying to make a character like this.

[raggedhalo]

You can't ever bring the dead back.

You can, however, play a magician from a Possession tradition and get your spirits to inhabit their corpses.

[hermit]

Bringing back the dead is one of the major no-gos in SR's Magic system (the others being teleportation and time travel).

There are workarounds, of course. You can play a possession-based ancestor spirit guy who can summon spirits that pretend to be the deads' souls and inhabit corpses. Also, you can emuate time travel on metaplanes (whcih can basically be anything), and you can 'teleport' by using a special metamagical technique that allows you access to a metaplane not unlike the doors place in matrix, from where you have fast access to anywhere (netherwalking). This technique is 4th world stuff, however, and the only entites in SR that know it are dragons and immortal elves.

[Muspellsheimr]

"Raising" the dead is the modern, popular view of Necromancy, heavily promoted by games such as Diablo, & various films & television - something almost entirely unrelated to what it actually is.

If you want to play a true (original) Necromancer, you want to play a tradition that allows access to Guidance & Man spirits, & focus on Divination spells & metamagics (particularly insight into past events & foresight into events to come - something very close to being a Big No on par with Teleportation/Timetravel).

That being said, my personal preference is for the "true" modern definition of necromancy - someone who manipulates & controls the life force. My single favorite character is such a necromancer, & she has a very heavy focus on Health spells, as almost anything such a character would do, falls under that category. I also designed several Health spells specific for her, & a new "infected" quality, based off the World of Darkness v.2 Tremere Lich.

[Hagga]

Maybe even branching out into the sacrificing metamagic for giggles.

[Neraph]

Nosferatu = Lich King.

Take that damage health spell (the opposite of Heal), and get your spirits to possess corpses. Get like Carrier (Ghoul) and infect a lot of peoples with the Ghoul virus, and get spells like Alter Memory, Control Thoughts/Mob Control, and Influence (unless you're a Nosferatu; see Comkpulsion and Influence powers). I'm actually playing a Nosferatu character in a game, based (not too) loosely on Prince Arthas from Warcraft III/Frozen Throne/World of Warcraft.

If you're interested, I'll post the build. The one I entered play with was... inefficient. I've been re-working it and tuning it up to power.

[Snow_Fox]

I think muspellsheimer put his finger on it. you are not going to raise the dead but a necromancer is really someone who's magic is angled at the dead and causing it. Combat spells and information would be big. clauraudience and clairvoyance. and spirits of man to 'commune with the spirits- hey just because a spirit shows up and tells you it's you dead aunt Betsy doesn't mean it really is.

Death spells for combat, maybe causing disease. You're not going to hurt someone, as a necromancer you will KILL them.

You won't bring people back from the dead but animated cadavers will be just fine.

[merashin]

& a new "infected" quality, based off the World of Darkness v.2 Tremere Lich.

can you please post this? It seems just like the kind of thing i like.

[hobgoblin]

the modern necromancer seems to be a hermetic variant on the petro side of voodoo (or was it vondon?).

[Muspellsheimr]

My character follows the "Scientific application of a spiritual belief" philosophy - something of a hybrid of Black, Faustian, & Hermetic traditions. For mechanical purposes, treat as Hermetic.

As for the Tremere quality:
100 BP
+2 Cha :: +2 Log :: +2 Int :: +2 Wil
Energy Drain (Essence): Line of Sight, Complex Action (Extended)
Essence Loss
In addition, a Tremere may hold up to three times their natural maximum Essence (as Nosferatu).

I have not yet actually had a chance to playtest it, & am concerned about the Complex Action being to powerful (as you can use it for "free" Magic). If I do decide this is overpowering, the action will be reduced to Minute (Extended), & the cost will be reduced to 90 BP.

The lore of how the quality is obtained has changed a bit from the World of Darkness version, but remains similar - it is now something akin to the character Inhabiting a dark spirit (such as Shadow Spirits), opposed to the spirit Inhabiting them.



As for a few examples of my custom spells:

Contagion (Negative)

[ Spoiler ]

Type: M ● Range: T ● Duration: P ● DV: (F+2)+4
This spell infects the subject with any single Pathogen, selected when the spell is cast. The Pathogens power is equal to the spells Net Hits, and affects the subject immediately (initial onset unresisted), but otherwise follows the normal rules for the Pathogen. No Pathogen inflicted with this spell is incurable, but if no known antidote exists, it must be overcome with a body's natural resistance.
Net Hits can also be used to reduce the base time for the spell to become permanent; each hit spent this way shaves off one Combat Turn (hits can be split between power and reducing the time as the caster desires). This spell is resisted with Body (+ Counterspelling).

Regeneration

[ Spoiler ]

Type: M ● Range: T ● Duration: S ● DV: (F+2)+4
This spell accelerates the subject's natural rate of healing, allowing for rapid regeneration of damage. At the end of each Combat Turn, the subject makes a Body + (Spell's Hits) test. Each hit regenerates 1 point of Physical or Stun damage. If the subject has already taken enough damage to enter into Physical damage overflow, the subject is not considered dead until it has had a chance to make a Regeneration Test. After a subject has made a Regeneration Test, if the damage overflow is still greater than the subject's Body attribute, then the subject is dead.
Some damage cannot be regenerated with this spell. Damage to the brain or spinal cord (for example, from a called shot to the head) cannot be healed this way. Damage from Drain cannot be healed through this spell. If the subject has an Allergy, damage cannot be regenerated until the allergens presence is removed.
A character can only be magically healed once for any single set of injuries.

[JoelHalpern]

My character follows the "Scientific application of a spiritual belief" philosophy - something of a hybrid of Black, Faustian, & Hermetic traditions. For mechanical purposes, treat as Hermetic.

As for the Tremere quality:
100 BP
+2 Cha :: +2 Log :: +2 Int :: +2 Wil
Energy Drain (Essence): Line of Sight, Complex Action (Extended)
Essence Loss
In addition, a Tremere may hold up to three times their natural maximum Essence (as Nosferatu).

I have not yet actually had a chance to playtest it, & am concerned about the Complex Action being to powerful (as you can use it for "free" Magic). If I do decide this is overpowering, the action will be reduced to Minute (Extended), & the cost will be reduced to 90 BP.

I may be misremembering the book, but thought thought essence drain was not recoverable.
Hence, someone who can inflict essence drain quickly, at range, is just plain terrifying. (It is the long durating and the need for contact which makes the existing critter powers "merely" scary. (Problems which can not be fixed strike me as really difficult to balance.)

Yours,
Joel

PS: Sorry if I am misunderstanding the rules. Separated from books by 1000 miles.

[loadsol]

Thanks alot i was wondering what opitons there were. I essentially made a hermetic mage doctor with the dark king mentor spirit and decided that character growth toward this would be interesting.

[Muspellsheimr]

Shadow Spirits have Essence Drain at Line of Sight, but require the subject to be experiencing a specific, strong emotion.

I believe there is a cannon example of something with a Complex Action Essence Drain, but cannot remember for certain - it is allowed in the Energy Drain description.

Finally, Essence can be recovered with gene therapy. It is difficult & expensive, but doable, & is far easier to recover from than death, which happens to be far easier to inflict than reducing someone to 0 Essence with a Complex Action Extended Test.

[hyzmarca]

I'd suggest convincing your GM to bring back the SR3 Ghost rules and go around collecting Chained Specters.

Baring that, go with a materialization tradition with Guardian, Task, Guidance, Man, and Beast spirits, focusing on the use of Guidance spirits for divination.


And Shadow spirits have Karma Drain. Totally different.

[Fortune]

PC or NPC, I don't think I would ever allow LOS Essence Drain in my games.

[Stahlseele]

Karma-Drain is bad enough, with that one slut-zilla built . . but yes, the essence drain is the worst there is, especially for close combat oriented cyber/bio people <.< . .

[Muspellsheimr]

Well I was off on the Shadow spirits - it's been a while since I reviewed them. Still, I think the Complex Action is far more potentially unbalancing than Line of Sight, & will remain my main focus once I get a chance to do any playtesting.

[Snow_Fox]

the modern necromancer seems to be a hermetic variant on the petro side of voodoo (or was it vondon?).

Voodoun is the actual religion but in my, limited, experience followers do not get offended if you call it voodoo.

[Neraph]

For a fun Necromancer tradition, make your own and have all 5 spirit slots it summons be Shadow spirits. We've talked about it http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=24321 here (someone really needs to show me how to link without pasting like that).

Note how the Forum posters had no problem with me summoning only Beast spirits, but as soon as I said (Shadow) they couldn't take it. They're a valid listed spirit, why not summon them?

In that note, you could make a tradition that summons only Shedim spirits (Greater Shedim spirits would be gained through Invocation metamagic), completely by the rules. It suggests that people can't summon Shedim, but metahumanity's knowledge of magic is ever-growing. Maybe your Shedim-mage is the first to figure it out. Maybe your Shadowmage (kewl name, BTW) is a distilled Chaos mage or Black mage who found the path to true power, as dictated by the dark spirits he's entered into Spirit Pacts with.

There's no good reason, except some people think it's a balance issue.

[hyzmarca]

For a fun Necromancer tradition, make your own and have all 5 spirit slots it summons be Shadow spirits. We've talked about it http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=24321 here (someone really needs to show me how to link without pasting like that).

Note how the Forum posters had no problem with me summoning only Beast spirits, but as soon as I said (Shadow) they couldn't take it. They're a valid listed spirit, why not summon them?

In that note, you could make a tradition that summons only Shedim spirits (Greater Shedim spirits would be gained through Invocation metamagic), completely by the rules. It suggests that people can't summon Shedim, but metahumanity's knowledge of magic is ever-growing. Maybe your Shedim-mage is the first to figure it out. Maybe your Shadowmage (kewl name, BTW) is a distilled Chaos mage or Black mage who found the path to true power, as dictated by the dark spirits he's entered into Spirit Pacts with.

There's no good reason, except some people think it's a balance issue.

You can't conjure Free Spirits without knowing their True Names.

[mrslamm0]

Aye thats what a friend and I do with our "Necromancers". We both took a possession tradition and pretty much gather corpses and keep them in our meat shop in till we posses them with a spirit =)

[Neraph]

You can't conjure Free Spirits without knowing their True Names.

I'm not talking about conjuring free spirits; the Shadow Spirits are in the Magical Threats section: that does not make them free spirits.

[Neraph]

Street Magic, pg. 146, Shadow Spirits: "Most are free or wold spirits..." (emphasis added).

[Stahlseele]

technically, ALL spirits you can conjure up could be considered free spirits untill you BIND them . .
depending on your outlook in the matter . . is it allways the same elemental?
do you create a new elemental?
what about the shamanic spirits?
those ancestor thingies, those are basically meant to be the souls of the dead or something like that . .
how do you even summon any of those without knowing their true name?

[Neraph]

Actually, summoned spirits have a weak link to their summoner, and bound spirits are very much tied to their summoner. Free spirits are very, very different. Using an alternate rule, any summoned spirit can make an Edge (3) test to see if they break free after their services are up.